Flood Risk and Community Resilience: An Interdisciplinary Approach

Flooding is an increasingly significant environmental hazard, as a result of land use change, climate change and other factors. But how can communities develop greater resilience to combat future flood risk? This book provides an accessible synthesis of the current research, policy and practice literature on flood risk management through a community lens. The primary focus is on flood risk but the book also draws appropriately on related research in other environmental hazards contexts (e.g. drought, volcanic, earthquake hazards). It also presents the author’s own ‘engaged’ research in flood risk management in distinctive non-contiguous interdisciplinary settings, as well as that of other researchers who have worked on and with ‘community’ in flood risk contexts.

The approach is interdisciplinary, drawing across work at the interface between the natural and social sciences. It capitalises on recent and on-going research alongside knowledge of the policy shifts that have been implemented after recent major floods, for example in the UK, Europe, Brisbane (Australia) and New Orleans (USA). The focus is predominately on the developed world but also include lessons learnt from community engagement with flood risk in the developing world, such as in Bangladesh. The chapters are designed to draw together a different and distinctive set of interdisciplinary themes in flood risk management and social resilience, which contrasts with more traditional books on engineering and infrastructure approaches.