Advancing local flood decision-making for disaster risk reduction
Climate change is exacerbating flood risks.
The overall objective of this project seeks to support local governments in urban communities in the Philippines and Indonesia to incorporate climate change into flood risk assessments and mobilise knowledge to realise resilient and sustainable development.
As a result of better understanding the influence of climate change on flood risk, local governments and communities can make more informed decisions on their development pathways. Increased access to flood risk assessments that forecast future changes will serve to not only reduce risk, but also prevent the creation of new risk – a growing concern.
This knowledge holds potential to save lives and prevent economic losses. The project will also seek to synthesise appropriate and simplified methods that can be used to create best practice on integrating climate change into flood models.
This research aims to understand these stressors and their future impact on flood risks, contributing to the Sendai Framework's goal to improve access to disaster risk information by 2030.
A key challenge in disaster risk reduction is defining disaster risk empirically. Without quality risk assessments, local governments lack crucial data for decision-making. This project will develop methods to incorporate climate change into flood modelling and risk estimation. It will also explore how risk information is legitimised in local planning to increase the use of risk assessments.
The research will partner closely with local governments to ensure policy action. An action research component will help understand how local knowledge is legitimised to enhance risk reduction strategy adoption.
Funded by the Asia-Pacific Network for Global Change Research.
Contributors: Dr Aaron Opdyke, Ms Emily Nabong, Mr Isaac Besarra, Ms Zoe Latham, and Ms Grace Barrett-Lennard.
Related research outputs
Application of Spatial Model the Contribution of Land Subsidence Caused by Palm Oil Plantations Land Clearing to the Escalating Flood Risk in the Trumon Area, South Aceh Regency, Indonesia, published in Aceh International Symposium on Civil Engineering, 2023.
Flood Simulation to Determine Flood Hazard Susceptibility of Downstream Singkil Watershed in Aceh Province, published in Aceh International Workshop and Expo on Sustainable Tsunami Disaster Recovery, 2023.
News
Three ways our researchers are aiding disaster risk reduction.
Examining climate change resilience through serious games.
Media
Resilience Live Ep.5: Identifying Archetypes of Participatory Flood Risk Governance under Uncertain Climate Futures.