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1. Investigating the Impact of Urban Layout Geometry on Urban Flooding

   A. Mustafa, M. Bruwier ( February 2019 , GEOProcessing 2019 : The Eleventh International Conference on Advanced Geographic Information Systems, Applications, and Services)

   In this paper, we use a procedural generation system to design urban layouts that passively reduce water depth during urban floods. The tool enables designing cities that passively lower flood depth everywhere or in chosen key areas. Our approach integrates a porosity-based hydraulic model and a parameterized urban generation system with an optimization engine so as to find the least cost modification to an initial urban layout. In order to investigate the relationship between urban layout design parameters and flood inundation depth, correlation coefficient method is used. This paper concludes that the most influential urban layout parameters are average road length and the mean parcel area. 

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2. Bayesian modeling of flood control networks for failure cascade characterization and vulnerability assessment

   https://doi.org/10.1111/mice.12527  

   Dong, Shangjia ; Yu, Tianbo ; Farahmand, Hamed ; Mostafavi, Ali ( December 2019 , Computer-Aided Civil and Infrastructure Engineering)

   This paper presents a Bayesian network model to assess the vulnerability of the flood control infrastructure and to simulate failure cascade based on the topological structure of flood control networks along with hydrological information gathered from sensors. Two measures are proposed to characterize the flood control network vulnerability and failure cascade: (a) node failure probability (NFP), which determines the failure likelihood of each network component under each scenario of rainfall event, and (b) failure cascade susceptibility, which captures the susceptibility of a network component to failure due to failure of other links. The proposed model was tested in both single watershed and multiple watershed scenarios in Harris County, Texas using historical data from three different flooding events, including Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The proposed model was able to identify the most vulnerable flood control network segments prone to flooding in the face of extreme rainfall. The framework and results furnish a new tool and insights to help decision‐makers to prioritize infrastructure enhancement investments and actions. The proposed Bayesian network modeling framework also enables simulation of failure cascades in flood control infrastructures, and thus could be used for scenario planning as well as near‐real‐time inundation forecasting to inform emergency response planning and operation, and hence improve the flood resilience of urban areas.

    

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3. How local governments avoid floodplain development through consistent implementation of routine municipal ordinances, plans, and programs

   https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfclm/kgae017  

   Siders, A_R ; Niemann-Morris, Jennifer ; Hino, Miyuki ; Shields, Elizabeth ; Cano_Pecharroman, Lidia ; Doeffinger, Tess ; Gerber-Chavez, Logan ; Huang, Ju-Ching ; Lafferty, Alexandra ; Tamima, Salvesila ; et al ( September 2024 , Oxford Open Climate Change)

   Avoiding floodplain development is critical for limiting flood damage, yet there is little empirical evidence of how local governments effectively avoid floodplain development. We conduct a mixed-methods study to explain how local floodplain management influences floodplain development in New Jersey, a state with high development pressure and flood risk. We find that 85% of towns developed relatively little in the floodplain from 2001 to 2019, and they achieved this with commonplace land use management tools and modest levels of local government capacity. One hundred twenty-six New Jersey towns put none of their new housing in the floodplain 2001–2019. Our findings run counter to common reports of rampant floodplain development requiring legal innovation and capacity-building campaigns and suggest alternative approaches for promoting floodplain avoidance. We find multiple paths to floodplain avoidance, weak support for previously identified drivers, and strong evidence that the keys to avoidance include having a few high-quality tools that are well-implemented, requiring consistency, coordination, and commitment of local officials. The multiple paths and importance of maximum, rather than average, quality might explain the mixed evidence in prior research connecting floodplain management actions and development outcomes. A lack of attention to towns that limit floodplain development impedes our ability to learn from and disseminate their successes. Contrary to our expectations, we show that floodplain avoidance can be and is achieved through routine municipal practices. Our findings underscore the importance of sustained commitment to development management as a core tool for limiting flood risk.

    

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4. A Review of the Community Flood Risk Management Literature: Lessons for Improving Community Resilience to Floods.

   Tyler, J. ; Sadiq, A.A. ; Noonan, D. S. ( April 2019 , Natural hazards)

   This study systematically reviews the diverse body of research on community flood risk management in the USA to identify knowledge gaps and develop innovative and practical lessons to aid flood management decision-makers in their efforts to reduce flood losses. The authors discovered and reviewed 60 studies that met the selection criteria (e.g., study is written in English, is empirical, focuses on flood risk management at the community level in the USA, etc.). Upon reviewing the major findings from each study, the authors identified seven practical lessons that, if implemented, could not only help flood management decision-makers better understand communities’ flood risks, but could also reduce the impacts of flood disasters and improve communities’ resilience to future flood disasters. These seven lessons include: (1) recognizing that acquiring open space and conserving wetlands are some of the most effective approaches to reducing flood losses; (2) recognizing that, depending on a community’s flood risks, different development patterns are more effective at reducing flood losses; (3) considering the costs and benefits of participating in FEMA’s Community Rating System program; (4) engaging community members in the flood planning and recovery processes; (5) considering socially vulnerable populations in flood risk management programs; (6) relying on a variety of floodplain management tools to delineate flood risk; and (7) ensuring that flood mitigation plans are fully implemented and continually revised. 

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5. Anchoring tools to communities: insights into perceptions of flood informational tools from a flood-prone community in Louisiana, USA

   https://doi.org/10.3389/frwa.2023.1087076  

   Habib, Emad H. ; Miles, Brian ; Skilton, Liz ; ElSaadani, Mohamed ; Osland, Anna C. ; Willis, Emma ; Miller, Robert ; Do, Trung ; Barnes, Stephen R. ( July 2023 , Frontiers in Water)

   The lack of community-relevant flood informational resources and tools often results in inadequate and divergent understandings of flood risk and can impede communities' ability to function cohesively in the face of increasing flood threats. The current study reports on a set of workshops that the authors conducted with various groups (citizens, city engineers and planners, realtors and builders, and media representatives) within a flood prone community to evaluate how novel hydroinformatic tools that include hydrodynamic modeling, geospatial visualization, and socioeconomic analysis can enhance understanding of flood risk and engagement in flood risk mitigation among diverse community members. The workshops were designed to help identify stakeholder preferences regarding key functionality needed for integrated hydroinformatic technologies and socioeconomic analyses for flood risk reduction. Workshop participants were asked to use and comment on examples of prototype flood risk informational tools, such as: (1) flood damage estimation tool, (2) drivability and emergency accessibility tool, and (3) community-scale social and economic metrics tool. Data gathered from workshops were analyzed using qualitative analysis based on a grounded-theory approach. Data were coded by hand based on themes identified by the research team and incorporated deviant case analysis to ensure minority opinions was represented. The study results are focused on the following main themes and how flood tools can address them: (1) improving the understanding of flood risk and engagement in flood risk mitigation, (2) reducing the gap between individual and community risk, (3) challenges in communicating flood risk information, (4) enhancing relevance to and engagement of the community, and (5) enabling actionable information. Our research demonstrates the need for community-anchored tools and technologies that can illustrate local context, include local historical and simulated events at multiple levels of community impact, enable analyses by flood professionals while also providing simplified tools of use by citizens, and allow individuals to expand their knowledge beyond their homes, businesses, and places of work. 

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