Recognizing that traditional flood management interventions focus on defence, attempting to eliminate contingencies in the urban relationship with rivers, an emergent perspective, spearheaded by spatial design, seeks to deal with floods through a more holistic framework. In contrast to the prevalent 'design against floods' approach that targets either the hazard or the exposure components of flood risk, 'design with floods' focuses as well on the assets at stake (including the built envelopes of exposed people and activities, usually covered under the term vulnerability), duly acknowledging the intertwining of natural and human processes. Using a multiple case study comprising three European flood-prone urban projects, we explore potentials of spatial design as an adaptation tool that goes beyond flood protection to foster wider societal gains. Our analyses have so far suggested that 'design with floods' requires a positive stance through which problem-solving and sense-making approaches are merged to provide both safety and urbanity (enriched urban realm and experience), without eliminating floods per se, accepted as a complex hybrid process.

In current measures taken in Europe to cope with growing flood risks, various elements characterize the strategic and practical choices involving anticipation, protection or mitigation. One crucial element in all flood-related projects is space. In quantitative and qualitative aspects, most flood adaptation strategies imply a morphological transformation of city and landscape, as well as the redefinition of land use and status, which in its turn can lead to new deals among territorial players. These multi-scale interplays can eventually put financial, political and social status-quo under unknown pressure, and transform the role of urban and landscape design, which gains in importance but also in complexity. The nine contemporary flood-related projects reviewed reveal that the fluctuating conditions and multiple interests in which they evolve require, in addition to creative approaches, openness, perseverance and diplomatic skills. Landscape, urban or architectural design becomes then an open and dynamic platform for spatial renegotiation and adaptation, challenging design practices in flood-prone areas as well as democratic structures.

A temática “riscos e desastres” tem chamado cada vez mais a atenção de estudiosos das Ciências Sociais e Humanas, visto o papel que os aspectos sociais e políticos têm na construção das vulnerabilidades e injustiças socioambientais. Neste editorial de seção especial, refletimos sobre situações de risco que comunidades, vulnerabilizadas pelo processo de expansão do sistema capitalista, vêm vivenciando em um contexto de incertezas associado à configuração contemporânea da modernidade. Com o foco centrado sobre a experiência dos riscos e desastres na periferia global lusófona, discutimos sobre a relação entre natureza e sociedade na produção de riscos, sobre a pluralidade do Antropoceno e sobre dois eixos centrais do problemas dos desastres em territórios periféricos: (neo)extrativismo e ocupação urbana.