Author(s): Zoran Vojinovic, Arlex Sanchez, Alida Alves, Yared Abebe, Neiler Medina, Ole Mark, Nina Sto. Domingo, Slobodan Djordjevic, Albert Chen, Katya Pyatkova, Mark Pelling, Arabella Fraser, Joern Birkmann, Linda Sorg, Jaume Amoros, Natasa Manojlovic, Peter Frohl
Linked Author(s): Zoran Vojinovic
Keywords: Flood risk, flood management, hazards, vulnerability, holistic approach
Abstract: Coastal floods are one of the most dangerous and harmful natural hazards affecting urban areas adjacent to shorelines. The present paper discusses the FP7-ENV-2013 EU funded PEARL (Preparing for Extreme And Rare events in coastal regions) project which brings together world leading expertise in both the domain of hydro-engineering and risk reduction and management services to pull knowledge and practical experience in order to develop more sustainable risk management solutions for coastal communities focusing on present and projected extreme hydro-meteorological events. The main goal of PEARL is to develop adaptive, socio technical risk management measures and strategies for coastal communities against extreme hydro-meteorological events minimizing social, economic and environmental impacts and increasing the resilience of Coastal Regions in Europe. PEARL adopts a holistic risk management approach, and uses different tools which range from complex adaptive system (CAS) models to numerical 1D/2D models and 3D animations. The results obtained suggest that a variety of data and methods is needed to reveal different insights of risk and its root causes. The risk assessment framework developed is holistic as it attempts to take into consideration a variety of root causes of vulnerabilities and risk as well as multiple impacts (e. g. , direct and indirect damages, public health, traffic and other urban infrastructure disruption)
Year: 2017