The need to integrate flood and drought disaster risk reduction strategies

Ward, Philip J.; Ruiter, Marleen C. de; Mård, Johanna; Schröter, Kai; Loon, Anne F. Van; Veldkamp, Ted; Uexküll, Nina von; Wanders, Niko; AghaKouchak, Amir; Arnbjerg‐Nielsen, Karsten; Capewell, Lucinda; Llasat, María Carmen; Day, Rosie; Dewals, Benjamin; Baldassarre, Giuliano Di; Huning, Laurie S.; Kreibich, Heidi; Mazzoleni, Maurizio; Savelli, Elisa; Teutschbein, Claudia; Berg, Harmen van den; Heijden, Anne van der; Vincken, Jelle M.R.; Waterloo, M. J.; Wens, Marthe

doi:10.1016/j.wasec.2020.100070

Cited by 143 publications

(126 citation statements)

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“…We should therefore improve our understanding of the interplay between streamflow extremes and other variables within a compound event framework (Zscheischler et al, 2018). Analyze societal influences on extremes and vice versa : To increase our understanding of societal influences on extremes and of extremes on society, we need to understand feedbacks between society and hydrological extremes, for example, how flood protection measures change in response to flood occurrence or how water supply chains expand in response to drought (Di Baldassarre et al, 2019; Ward et al, 2020). …”

Section: Process Understandingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges in modeling and predicting floods and droughts: A review

et al. 2021

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Predictions of floods, droughts, and fast drought‐flood transitions are required at different time scales to develop management strategies targeted at minimizing negative societal and economic impacts. Forecasts at daily and seasonal scale are vital for early warning, estimation of event frequency for hydraulic design, and long‐term projections for developing adaptation strategies to future conditions. All three types of predictions—forecasts, frequency estimates, and projections—typically treat droughts and floods independently, even though both types of extremes can be studied using related approaches and have similar challenges. In this review, we (a) identify challenges common to drought and flood prediction and their joint assessment and (b) discuss tractable approaches to tackle these challenges. We group challenges related to flood and drought prediction into four interrelated categories: data, process understanding, modeling and prediction, and human–water interactions. Data‐related challenges include data availability and event definition. Process‐related challenges include the multivariate and spatial characteristics of extremes, non‐stationarities, and future changes in extremes. Modeling challenges arise in frequency analysis, stochastic, hydrological, earth system, and hydraulic modeling. Challenges with respect to human–water interactions lie in establishing links to impacts, representing human–water interactions, and science communication. We discuss potential ways of tackling these challenges including exploiting new data sources, studying droughts and floods in a joint framework, studying societal influences and compounding drivers, developing continuous stochastic models or non‐stationary models, and obtaining stakeholder feedback. Tackling one or several of these challenges will improve flood and drought predictions and help to minimize the negative impacts of extreme events. This article is categorized under: Science of Water > Science of Water

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Section: Process Understandingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Challenges in modeling and predicting floods and droughts: A review

et al. 2021

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“…Water infrastructure, such as levees or reservoirs, can help reduce the frequency of hydrological extremes, but can also: (a) generate complacency or a false sense of security, that is, safe-development paradox (Ferreira et al, 2013;Kates et al, 2006;Montz & Tobin, 2008); (b) fuel urbanization of floodplains (Pinter et al, 2016;White, 1945); and (c) enable increasing water consumption (Di Baldassarre et al, 2018;Gohari et al, 2013;Kallis, 2010). Research in sociohydrology (Sivapalan et al, 2012) has shown how large water infrastructure can worsen the negative impacts of floods or droughts (Di Baldassarre et al, 2021;Garcia et al, 2020;Viglione et al, 2014;Ward et al, 2020).…”

Section: The Complexity Of Human-water Systemsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating Multiple Research Methods to Unravel the Complexity of Human‐Water Systems

et al. 2021

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Predicting floods and droughts is essential to inform the development of policy in water management, climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction. Yet, hydrological predictions are highly uncertain, while the frequency, severity and spatial distribution of extreme events are further complicated by the increasing impact of human activities on the water cycle. In this commentary, we argue that four main aspects characterizing the complexity of human‐water systems should be explicitly addressed: feedbacks, scales, tradeoffs and inequalities. We propose the integration of multiple research methods as a way to cope with complexity and develop policy‐relevant science.

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“…This is because uncertainties in climate change adaptation planning come from different systems, including the climatic, hydrological, (bio)physical, and the socioeconomic system (Aerts et al., 2018; Dunn et al., 2019; Kuenzer & Renaud, 2012; Wong et al., 2014). Adaptation measures also come in various forms, targeting different parts of the systems, and potentially benefitting or harming different subgroups within a population (Atteridge & Remling, 2018; Begg et al., 2015; Smajgl et al., 2015; Ward et al., 2020). The co‐evolution between these systems may thus give rise to distinctive inequality patterns.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%