Preparing decisions to prevent flood impacts
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In spite of the long term perspective, there is a growing concern about the consequences of climate change on the built environment. Some recent events, such as floods or heat waves, might be alert signals of future daily reality. Without waiting for the confirmation of such potential trends, urban decision makers are faced to choose adaptation measures. These measures are twofold:
- prevention by reducing the vulnerability of the built environment to the already present climatic events,
- protection by anticipating measures that must be ready when flood occurs.
The aim of vulnerability reduction measures is to:
- limit risks for flood victims,
- limit damages to buildings in order to minimize repair works,
- limit the delay to take possession again of flooded buildings (under satisfactory sanitary conditions)
In order to inform urban decision makers as well as potential victims, objective information is needed in at least two domains:
- the assessment of vulnerability reduction measures: what is the best to be done on a particular building, in a particular area?
- the assessment of the performances of protection systems: what can be expected from the use of a particular system?
Another important aspect of the question for city decisions makers is the dissemination of validated information in order inhabitants are ready to behave according to common sense procedures which have been tested so far. As far as flood is concerned, this communication presents initiatives developed at CSTB (and other organisms) in order to help answering these questions.
Newsletter 7 on Workshop 6: Risk management and training
