Insights from socio-hydrology modelling on dealing with flood risk – Roles of collective memory, risk-taking attitude and trust

Viglione, Alberto; Baldassarre, Giuliano Di; Brandimarte, Luigia; Kuil, Linda; Carr, Gemma; Salinas, José Luis; Scolobig, Anna; Blöschl, Günter

doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2014.01.018

Cited by 259 publications

(253 citation statements)

References 46 publications

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“…People respond by reducing population density (D, ranging between 0 and 1) in the floodplain, and they can respond by building or heightening levees (H) to protect the floodplain (i.e., nonstructural and structural measures). As the memory of flooding decays with time [Di Baldassarre et al, 2013b;Viglione et al, 2014], the tendency to resettle closer to the river and increase population density in the floodplain resumes.…”

Section: Modeling Feedbacks Between Physical and Social Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our conceptualization considers a time series of peak-over threshold of natural high water levels, W(t), which are typically a sequence of impulses with different magnitudes and nonregular time arrivals [Viglione et al, 2014]. Empirical evidence shows that, when levees are built, high water levels tend to be exacerbated [Heine and Pinter, 2012;Di Baldassarre et al, 2010, 2013b.…”

Section: Modeling Feedbacks Between Physical and Social Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It should be noted that humans typically apply a combination of these two management systems, although several societies tend to have a dominant behavior similar to either green or technological societies [Viglione et al, 2014]. Anyhow, combination of structural and nonstructural measures, and shifts from green to technological societies (and vice versa), can be schematized by adding a parameter to the conceptual model as shown elsewhere [e.g., Di Baldassarre et al, 2013b].…”

Section: Modeling Feedbacks Between Physical and Social Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Compared to a previous version of the model [Di Baldassarre et al, 2013b;Viglione et al, 2014], this new conceptualization can be more easily compared to real-world observations as it uses population density in Figure 5. Coupled dynamics of floods and societies in response to increasing flood levels.…”

Section: Modeling Feedbacks Between Physical and Social Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Debates—Perspectives on socio‐hydrology: Capturing feedbacks between physical and social processes

Baldassarre

Viglione²,

Carr

et al. 2015

Water Resources Research

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392

369

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In flood risk assessment, there remains a lack of analytical frameworks capturing the dynamics emerging from two-way feedbacks between physical and social processes, such as adaptation and levee effect. The former, ''adaptation effect'', relates to the observation that the occurrence of more frequent flooding is often associated with decreasing vulnerability. The latter, ''levee effect'', relates to the observation that the non-occurrence of frequent flooding (possibly caused by flood protection structures, e.g. levees) is often associated to increasing vulnerability. As current analytical frameworks do not capture these dynamics, projections of future flood risk are not realistic. In this paper, we develop a new approach whereby the mutual interactions and continuous feedbacks between floods and societies are explicitly accounted for. Moreover, we show an application of this approach by using a socio-hydrological model to simulate the behavior of two main prototypes of societies: green societies, which cope with flooding by resettling out of flood-prone areas; and technological societies, which deal with flooding also by building levees or dikes. This application shows that the proposed approach is able to capture and explain the aforementioned dynamics (i.e. adaptation and levee effect) and therefore contribute to a better understanding of changes in flood risk, within an iterative process of theory development and empirical research.

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Section: Modeling Feedbacks Between Physical and Social Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Modeling Feedbacks Between Physical and Social Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Modeling Feedbacks Between Physical and Social Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Modeling Feedbacks Between Physical and Social Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Debates—Perspectives on socio‐hydrology: Capturing feedbacks between physical and social processes

Baldassarre

Viglione²,

Carr

et al. 2015

Water Resources Research

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392

369

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“…Currently, it is widely recognized that a paradigm shift is required to move from defensive to proactive action, towards a culture of prevention by managing the risk of and living with floods (Annamo and Kristiansen, 2012). The latest concept is also supported by the recent outcomes of Viglione et al (2014) that demonstrate the relevance of a suite of social/cultural/anthropogenic drivers for the characterization of vulnerability patterns in (selected) communities.…”

mentioning

confidence: 88%

The KULTURisk Regional Risk Assessment methodology for water-related natural hazards – Part 1: Physical–environmental assessment

Ronco

Gallina

Torresan

et al. 2014

Hydrol. Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. In recent years, the frequency of catastrophes induced by natural hazards has increased, and flood events in particular have been recognized as one of the most threatening water-related disasters. Severe floods have occurred in Europe over the last decade, causing loss of life, displacement of people and heavy economic losses. Flood disasters are growing in frequency as a consequence of many factors, both climatic and non-climatic. Indeed, the current increase of water-related disasters can be mainly attributed to the increase of exposure (elements potentially at risk in flood-prone area) and vulnerability (i.e. economic, social, geographic, cultural and physical/environmental characteristics of the exposure). Besides these factors, the undeniable effect of climate change is projected to strongly modify the usual pattern of the hydrological cycle by intensifying the frequency and severity of flood events at the local, regional and global scale. Within this context, the need for developing effective and pro-active strategies, tools and actions which allow one to assess and (possibly) to reduce the flood risks that threatens different relevant receptors becomes urgent. Several methodologies to assess the risk posed by water-related natural hazards have been proposed so far, but very few of them can be adopted to implement the last European Flood Directive (FD). This paper is intended to introduce and present a state-of-the-art Regional Risk Assessment (RRA) methodology to appraise the risk posed by floods from a physical-environmental perspective. The methodology, developed within the recently completed FP7-KULTURisk Project (Knowledge-based approach to develop a cULTUre of Risk prevention -KR) is flexible and can be adapted to different case studies (i.e. plain rivers, mountain torrents, urban and coastal areas) and spatial scales (i.e. from catchment to the urban scale). The FD compliant KR-RRA methodology is based on the concept of risk being function of hazard, exposure and vulnerability. It integrates the outputs of various hydrodynamic models with site-specific bio-geophysical and socio-economic indicators (e.g. slope, land cover, population density, economic activities etc.) to develop tailored risk indexes and GIS-based maps for each of the selected receptors (i.e. people, buildings, infrastructure, agriculture, natural and semi-natural systems, cultural heritage) in the considered region. It further compares the baseline scenario with alternative scenarios, where different structural and/or non-structural mitigation measures are planned and eventually implemented. As demonstrated in the companion paper (Part 2, Ronco et al., 2014), risk maps, along with related statistics, allow one to identify and classify, on a relative scale, areas at risk which are more likely to be affected by floods and support the development of strategic adaptation and prevention measures to minimizing flood impacts. In addition, the outcomes of the RRA can be eventually used for a further socio-economic assessment, cons...

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Modeling and mitigating natural hazards: Stationarity is immortal!

Montanari

Koutsoyiannis

2014

Water Resources Research

235

159

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Environmental change is a reason of relevant concern as it is occurring at an unprecedented pace and might increase natural hazards. Moreover, it is deemed to imply a reduced representativity of past experience and data on extreme hydroclimatic events. The latter concern has been epitomized by the statement that ''stationarity is dead.'' Setting up policies for mitigating natural hazards, including those triggered by floods and droughts, is an urgent priority in many countries, which implies practical activities of management, engineering design, and construction. These latter necessarily need to be properly informed, and therefore, the research question on the value of past data is extremely important. We herein argue that there are mechanisms in hydrological systems that are time invariant, which may need to be interpreted through data inference. In particular, hydrological predictions are based on assumptions which should include stationarity. In fact, any hydrological model, including deterministic and nonstationary approaches, is affected by uncertainty and therefore should include a random component that is stationary. Given that an unnecessary resort to nonstationarity may imply a reduction of predictive capabilities, a pragmatic approach, based on the exploitation of past experience and data is a necessary prerequisite for setting up mitigation policies for environmental risk.

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Insights from socio-hydrology modelling on dealing with flood risk – Roles of collective memory, risk-taking attitude and trust

Cited by 259 publications

References 46 publications

Debates—Perspectives on socio‐hydrology: Capturing feedbacks between physical and social processes

Debates—Perspectives on socio‐hydrology: Capturing feedbacks between physical and social processes

The KULTURisk Regional Risk Assessment methodology for water-related natural hazards – Part 1: Physical–environmental assessment

Modeling and mitigating natural hazards: Stationarity is immortal!

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