Lessons learnt from Typhoons Fitow and In-Fa: implications for improving urban flood resilience in Asian Coastal Cities

Abstract

Frequent typhoons are signi cantly affecting the coastal cities via intensive rainstorms, tidal surges and strong wind. Natural factors such as climate change and global sea-level rise come alongside anthropogenic factors such as rapid urbanisation and land use/land cover change leading to detrimental consequences such as urban oods. This short communication offers various lessons learnt by Ningbo municipality from two strong typhoons that hit the city directly, namely "Fitow" in 2013 and "In-Fa" in 2021. On the one hand, the usage of "Big Data" and "Social Media" for bettering "Preparation" and "Prevention" reduced ood impacts signi cantly. On the other hand, the implementation of "Flood Insurance" speed up the "Recovery" processes. The successful "Preparation", "Response" and "Recovery" helped Ningbo to enhance its ood resilience, and thus substantial impacts of injuries, household damages and associated economic loss were avoided. These three key terms should be heeded in typhoon/ ood governance in which various stakeholders are involved with, and be incorporated into the city's long-term strategic development plans to merge with the climate actions towards 2030s and beyond. This will be vitally important in reducing climatic hazards and improving coastal ood resilience under the future climatic uncertainties in Asian coastal cities.

A 131-year evidence of more extreme and higher total amount of hourly precipitation in Hong Kong

“…Therefore, apart from traditional engineering measures, sufficient strategic planning and more flexible approaches are needed to enhance the resilience of the city [47]. For example, non-traditional approaches using big data and social media to improve the preparation and response of communities to floods have emerged recently [48,49]. These results are not only applicable in Hong Kong, but also of practical significance to other cities to enhance climate readiness, especially flood prevention and management.…”

Improving urban flood resilience via GDELT GKG analyses in China's Sponge Cities

“…Information technologies (e.g., news media, social media, 3D mapping services, Internet of Things) are encouraged to enhance better urban flood response during urban flood events. For example, using media data and technologies for better preparation and prevention noticeably reduced flood impacts in Ningbo during severe typhoon In-Fa event 2021 30 . Indeed, In-Fa caused a 150–200 mm/24 h rainstorm and severe surface water flooding in Ningbo, but successful preparation, response, and recovery ensured “zero causalities” and reduced substantial economic losses 31 .…”

Perception of sponge city for achieving circularity goal and hedge against climate change: a study on Weibo

“…Recent research has shown that social media is increasingly being used to respond to crises. Using big data and social media to improve flooding preparation and prevention significantly reduced flooding impacts (Chan et al, 2022). Social media is used for disaster preparation, response, mitigation and recovery (Tang et al, 2015;Carley et al, 2016;Cheng et al, 2019).…”