Integrated community-based approaches to urban pluvial flooding research, trends and future directions: A review

Abstract

Urban pluvial flooding (UPF) resulting from localized, intense, rainfall-generated ponding and overland flow causes a range of socio-environmental impacts. UPF is driven by a complex set of interconnected factors, including physical, historical, social, cultural, institutional, and economic conditions. Its impacts are increasing due to both biophysical change (e.g., global warming) and the interactions between the human and physical dimensions of the urban environment (e.g., land-use change). Notwithstanding its complexity and the rather low level of attention it has received in both research and practice, UPF is an issue that needs to be tackled from a comprehensive perspective. Different integrated approaches such as citizen science and socio-hydrology have tried to address UPF by coupling humans and environmental systems, reflecting the possible outcomes from the interaction between disciplines—albeit not without limitations. This paper presents findings on a review of current integrated community-based approaches to UPF research and discusses how scholars have approached this problem and its management. The limitations of these approaches to fully capture the multi-dimensional nature of UPF are explored in detail, and research gaps are identified. Finally, the paper provides suggestions for future research based on a transdisciplinary, transformative citizen science approach.

Publication Title

Urban Climate

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