Being resilient against flooding is a key challenge for urban communities – and one for which civil engineers can play a vital role. Manuela Escarameia of HR Wallingford highlights findings of two themed issues of the Institution of Civil Engineers’ journal Water Management on the topic.
Much has been written in recent years about resilience in many sectors of society and, equally, many definitions of resilience have been suggested.
In the context of urban resilience to flooding, the following definition by van Veelen et al. (2015: p. 50) is arguably the most appropriate: ‘Resilience [is] the capacity of a system to buffer natural variations, recover from disturbances and return to its previous state without experiencing changes to the system as a whole.’
However, when certain thresholds are reached (‘tipping points’) systems are no longer able to recover and need to adapt to face changing circumstances.
This is what civil engineers need to bear in mind when designing and managing infrastructure that limits personal and economic damage from flooding.
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