Re-Thinking Urban Flood Management—Time for a Regime Shift

Water 2016, 8(8), 332; doi:10.3390/w8080332

Author 

Johanna Sörensen ¹

, Andreas Persson ²

, Catharina Sternudd ³

, Henrik Aspegren ⁴

, Jerry Nilsson ⁵

, Jonas Nordström ⁶

, Karin Jönsson ⁴

, Misagh Mottaghi ⁴

, Per Becker ⁷

, Petter Pilesjö ²

, Rolf Larsson ¹

, Ronny Berndtsson ^1,8,*  and Shifteh Mobini ⁹

¹

Water Resources Engineering, Lund University, Lund SE-221 00, Sweden

²

GIS Centre/Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University, Lund SE-221 00, Sweden

³

Architecture and Built Environment, Lund University, Lund SE-221 00, Sweden

⁴

Water and Environmental Engineering, Lund University, Lund SE-221 00, Sweden

⁵

Faculty of Culture and Society, Malmö University, Malmö SE-205 06, Sweden

⁶

AgriFood, Economics Centre, Lund University, Lund SE-220 07, Sweden

⁷

Risk Management and Societal Safety, Lund University, Lund SE-221 00, Sweden

⁸

Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Lund University, Lund SE-221 00, Sweden

⁹

VA Syd, Malmö SE-211 20, Sweden

^*

Author to whom correspondence should be addressed. 

Academic Editor: Peter J. Coombes

Received: 7 June 2016 / Revised: 27 July 2016 / Accepted: 2 August 2016 / Published: 4 August 2016

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Water Challenges)

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Abstract 

Urban flooding is of growing concern due to increasing densification of urban areas, changes in land use, and climate change. The traditional engineering approach to flooding is designing single-purpose drainage systems, dams, and levees. These methods, however, are known to increase the long-term flood risk and harm the riverine ecosystems in urban as well as rural areas. In the present paper, we depart from resilience theory and suggest a concept to improve urban flood resilience. We identify areas where contemporary challenges call for improved collaborative urban flood management. The concept emphasizes resiliency and achieved synergy between increased capacity to handle stormwater runoff and improved experiential and functional quality of the urban environments. We identify research needs as well as experiments for improved sustainable and resilient stormwater management namely, flexibility of stormwater systems, energy use reduction, efficient land use, priority of transport and socioeconomic nexus, climate change impact, securing critical infrastructure, and resolving questions regarding responsibilities. View Full-Text

Keywords: urban flooding;  resilience;  climate change adaptation;  blue-green urban solutions

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This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. (CC BY 4.0).

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