Modeling the impacts of urban flood risk management on social inequality
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Moulds, S
Buytaert, W
Templeton, MR
Kanu, I
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The exposure of urban populations to flooding is highly heterogeneous, with the negative impacts of flooding experienced disproportionately by the poor. In developing countries experiencing rapid urbanization and population growth a key distinction in the urban landscape is between planned development and unplanned, informal development, which often occurs on marginal, flood-prone land. Flood risk management in the context of informality is challenging, and may exacerbate existing social inequalities and entrench poverty. Here, we adapt an existing socio-hydrological model of human-flood interactions to account for a stratified urban society consisting of planned and informal settlements. In the first instance, we use the model to construct four system archetypes based on idealized scenarios of risk reduction and disaster recovery. We then perform a sensitivity analysis to examine the relative importance of the differential values of vulnerability, risk-aversion, and flood awareness in determining the relationship between flood risk management and social inequality. The model results suggest that reducing the vulnerability of informal communities to flooding plays an important role in reducing social inequality and enabling sustainable economic growth, even when the exposure to the flood hazard remains high. Conversely, our model shows that increasing risk aversion may accelerate the decline of informal communities by suppressing economic growth. On this basis, we argue for urban flood risk management which is rooted in pro-poor urban governance and planning agendas which recognize the legitimacy and permanence of informal communities in cities.
Date Issued
2021-06-01
Date Acceptance
2021-05-19
Citation
Water Resources Research, 2021, 57 (6)
ISSN
0043-1397
Publisher
Wiley
Journal / Book Title
Water Resources Research
Volume
57
Issue
6
Copyright Statement
© 2021. The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Sponsor
Wellcome Trust
Grant Number
209376/Z/17/Z
Subjects
Environmental Engineering
0406 Physical Geography and Environmental Geoscience
0905 Civil Engineering
0907 Environmental Engineering
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN e2020WR029024
Date Publish Online
2021-05-21