Resilience to flooding: lessons from international comparison

Urban resilience is a key focus of current approaches to flood management. The notion of resilience encompasses pre-disaster planning and warning systems, emergency handling procedures and post-disaster reconstruction. Both human and physical systems are involved at all stages. The success of resilience programmes relies on the cooperation of floodplain populations-for example, increasing the installation of structural flood-resistant and resilient features requires significant commitment from property owners. Knowledge of common features of floodplain populations can therefore aid understanding of the ways in which such cooperation can be achieved. A review of international literature relating to flood proofing of homes and the attitudes of floodplain residents reveals that there are many barriers to overcome in encouraging the installation of resilient measures. Many of these barriers are common across surveyed populations: any proposed scheme must contend with informational barriers, emotional constraints, aesthetic considerations and timing issues. Other barriers depend on local circumstances, finance and regulatory regimes. Lessons can be learned from successful schemes that have overcome some or all of these problems if care is exercised in interpreting the scheme benefits in relation to the identified barriers.