Urbanization has been identified as one of the issues with the greatest environmental impacts on water resources. This study aims to make an environmental diagnosis of urban water management with a ...systematic approach in a basin with great hydrogeological complexity. We have analyzed urban water management in the Langueyú basin, Argentina, in the period comprehended between 1940 and 2015 in which the city has had a disordered urban growth. It showed that the lack of integrated management together with urban expansion have resulted in a process of building densification and infrastructure that favors the recurrence and magnitude of exceptional hydrological events. This has been accompanied by a spatial displacement of these events and a lack of sanitary services with the same sense of urbanization. It was also demonstrated that the lack of integrated water management this not only had consequences on the Tandil city services associated with the urban hydrological cycle, but also on the quality of its surface water resources (contamination of streams in its urban section) and groundwater (elevation of nitrates levels in water from wells water supply). The absence of a systemic approach to the problem has not considered the relationships between the subsystems involved in water management. This management has been based mainly on the application of structural measures. The main non-structural measure carried out has been to expand the regulations and some neighbor's struggle movements. Other non-structural measures promoted by several actors involved in urban water management, such as authorities, should be carried out in order to raise awareness amongst the population on the importance of water resource protection, especially in areas with hydrogeological limitations.
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•Urban water management (UWM) is an organizing axis of space.•Urban water cycle includes different subsystems closely and complexly linked.•UWM should have a systemic approach that is necessary to address that complexity.•Structural measures only are not enough for a sustainable UWM.•Sustainable UWM requires non-structural measures with different stakeholders.
Flood risk and its reduction in China Kundzewicz, ZW; Su, Buda; Wang, Yanjun ...
Advances in water resources,
August 2019, 2019-08-00, 20190801, Letnik:
130
Journal Article
Recenzirano
•Floods in China often cause annual loss in excess of 10 billion US$.•Flood risk has grown in many places in China and is likely to grow further in the future.•Floods of a given return period in the ...reference interval are projected to become more frequent in much of China.•There is a strong link between climate variability and abundant humidity in China.
Despite massive flood protection efforts in China, undertaken since the ancient times, disastrous floods continue to plague the country. In this paper, we discuss changes in flood hazard and flood risk in China. First, we review published results (including our own works) on change detection in observed records of intense precipitation, high river flow and flood damage in China. We provide information on essential features of extreme floods in last decades – floods on large rivers, urban floods, and flash floods. Next, we review available projections for the future (including our own results), related to intense precipitation, high river flow and flood damage in China. We try to interpret the difference in flood hazard projections obtained in various publications. Since the spread of river flood hazard projections is large, projections have to be interpreted with caution, because of the impact on decisions related to climate change adaptation, flood risk reduction, and water resources management. We review flood risk reduction strategies in China, focusing on the present situation and division of responsibilities. China has embarked upon an ambitious and vigorous task to improve flood preparedness, by both structural (“hard”) defences, such as: dikes, dams and flood control reservoirs, and diversions, as well as non-structural (“soft”) measures: spatial planning and zoning; watershed management (source control), flood forecasting and warning systems; and awareness raising. The strategy of flood mitigation includes flood retention and urban water management to alleviate the burden of flash and urban flooding.
Risk analysis and appraisal of the benefits of structural flood risk management measures such as embankments is well established. Here, a method to quantify, over extended timescales, the ...effectiveness of non-structural measures such as land use spatial planning, insurance and flood resilient construction is presented. The integrated approach couples socio-economic and climate change scenarios with long term land use modelling and flood risk analysis to generate maps and time series of expected annual damages. The analysis has been applied on a case study in the Thames Estuary in the UK. Stakeholders helped develop a number of scenarios that might lead to substantial changes in existing planning and insurance policies in the UK. The effectiveness of these changes was analysed and showed the substantial benefits in terms of reduction of future flood risks that are achievable with changes in planning policy, financial incentives and resilient property construction in the floodplain. Moreover, the reward can be increased through earlier action. Subsequently, the benefits of a range of policies are explored under the UK Foresight socio-economic scenarios. Different structural and non structural flood management interventions are tested and the results demonstrate that despite the potential for large increases in flood risk in the Thames Estuary, in all scenarios substantial flood risk reductions are possible. The effectiveness of non-structural measures is however sensitive to socio-economic changes and governance arrangements. The analysis described here will help to identify portfolios of non-structural and structural options that are robust to uncertainties.
Communities are being menaced by floods since ages. Flood occurrence not only imposes loss to the infrastructure and property but it also claims thousands of lives and leave millions homeless. Floods ...occur due to hydro-metrological and natural factors, however in recent years, human intervention has added new dimensions to it. South Asia's geography makes it susceptible to natural disasters and the most flood vulnerable regions in the world. In addition to this, countries in this region exhibit a high level of vulnerability unfortunately due to lack of resources, namely adaptive as well as coping capacities. Pakistan in particular, has a long history of floods. The country has witnessed almost 19 major flood events resulting into a cumulative flooding of over 594,700 km2 area with 166,075 villages affected and a total direct cumulative losses to the tune of about US $ 30 billion that ended up into the loss of 10,668 precious lives in the past 60 years. However, the floods of 2010 and 2011 were the most devastating. The national flood policy has been enhanced through several federal and provincial acts since the country came into existence. Unfortunately, there has not been reported any major reduction in the flood-to-damage ratio. Herein a brief review has been carried out that ponders on the current state of knowledge of the topic, particularly the nature of flood in the South Asian region, mainly Pakistan.
The paper examines how local-level institutions mitigate landslide hazards in southeast Bangladesh. In this context, sixteen sub-districts (Upazila) were selected as sample sites from the ...southeastern districts through disproportionate quota sampling for a sample survey. Forty-five officials were interviewed by using a semi-structured questionnaire at the local level. The study reveals two types of measures (i.e., structural and non-structural) that have been taken by local-level institutions under the National Plan of Disaster Management (NPDM) as there is no Landslide-specific Disaster Management Policy in southeast Bangladesh. The study explores that the structural measures (guide wall and retaining wall for slope stabilization, resettlement, small-scale plantation, etc.) are insufficient due to the financial constraints. The findings reveal that the emergency responses (eviction, temporary evacuation, dissemination of early warning, etc.) are adequate to reduce the landslide-induced causality; however, the non-structural measures (such as early warning system, housing facilities, community-based awareness-raising programs with more training and workshops, rehabilitation activities, etc.) need special attention to mitigate landslide hazards. The results also suggest that resettlement policy should consider the ethnic culture along with other regional factors of a diversified hilly environment. It also puts forward an institution-based solution, including a comprehensive official landslide database with sustainable hill management mechanisms. Such evidence epitomizes a significant foremost step in developing realistic mitigation strategies for landslide-prone areas with similar socio-economic, cultural, and regional settings like southeast Bangladesh.
•Lack of Landslide-specific Disaster Management Policy in southeast Bangladesh.•The structural measures are insufficient due to the financial constraints.•The non-structural measures need special attention to mitigate landslide hazards.•Resettlement policy should consider the ethnic culture along with other regional factors.
Climate change is causing an increase in the frequency of extreme disasters, increasing the likelihood of dam failures and floods. At the same time, the concentration of human activities in certain ...areas has increased the severity of the consequences of dam failures, requiring the establishment of more robust and reliable emergency management systems to protect lives and property. Non-structural measures serve as flexible and adaptable emergency mitigation measures that can be dynamically adjusted during rescue operations and enhance the resilience of urban systems. This article focuses on the consequences of life loss due to dam failure. Taking China's Yuyao City and SMH Reservoir as the research object, it analyzes the emergency response process after the disaster occurred, identifies the factors influencing the life loss, and selects non-structural measures such as disaster identification warnings, urban emergency management responses, evacuation routes, and destination selection as key areas of study. The research examines the impact of non-structural measures on the consequences of life loss and provides recommendations and suggestions. The results indicate that effective non-structural measures can significantly reduce the life loss in flood disasters.
Levee breach inundations can entail large flood losses due to the high concentration of exposed assets in levee-protected floodplains and, sometimes, to the inadequacy or absence of early warning ...systems for this type of events. Since real-time modelling is computationally expensive and presents several uncertainties, which might prevent obtaining a reasonably accurate forecast of the flood propagation, an alternative methodology for the prompt prediction of flooded area, maximum depths, and arrival times during a real event was proposed. The strategy is based on the use of a database of pre-simulated scenarios of levee-breach inundations, obtained adopting a high-resolution two-dimensional shallow water model. The paper aims at the a posteriori assessment of the usefulness of this strategy. To this end, the December 2020 event on the Panaro River (Italy) is thoroughly analyzed. In the study area, the strategy had already been implemented before the event, and pre-simulated scenarios were consulted during the emergency. Post-event observations are also available for the ex-post model validation. The database was obtained considering two inflow synthetic hydrographs and a discrete number of breach locations, and unavoidable differences between real events and hypothetical scenarios were to be expected. However, for this case study, the closest levee-breach scenario in the database (in terms of breach position and inflow) provided reliable predictions of flood extent and maximum depths for the actual inundation. The pre-simulated database also helped identifying some critical spots, where effective emergency operations (sandbagging) helped protecting an urban district during the event. As accurate real-time forecasts of levee-breach inundations are yet to come, a database of pre-simulated scenarios is proven as an effective “surrogate” method for civil protection purposes.
•Database of 2D simulations of hypothetical inundation scenarios due to levee breaches.•Case study of the levee collapse of December 2020 on the Panaro River (Italy).•Event simulated, validated with field data, and compared with the closest scenario.•The comparison shows the usefulness of the database for predicting the flood extent.•This can be an effective non-structural measure for civil protection activities.
The article aims at substantiating the theoretical and methodological foundations of research in bank consolidation and assessing its consequences in order to identify the relationship between ...consolidation and the banking market structure. The main preconditions and priorities of consolidation are systematized and generalized, taking into account the theory of financial integration and synergetic interaction. This approach will contribute to deeper understanding of the motives and trends of consolidation in modern conditions. It is noted that the transnationalization and concentration of capital form the basis for market consolidation, which goes through a certain life cycle, the latter being specified by the authors. It is concluded that the universal, integrated nature of financial business and the formation of financial business ecosystems is becoming more widespread. The main changes in financial mediation are identified. Statistics of banking concentration in Ukraine is given. The dynamics of concentration ratio for the period from January 1, 2000 to August 1, 2020 was analyzed, revealing that the market is moderately concentrated. It is stipulated that the higher the combined share of the five major banks in the banking sector, the less likely a domestic merger and acquisition is. Accordingly, the domestic banking market, compared to European ones, has significant potential. It is concluded that the high values of profitability indicators speak of excess demand over supply in the banking market; thus, competitive intensity under such conditions is minimal, even with the withdrawal of most banks from the market. Thus, competition is only declared. In the future, we should expect increased non-interest rate competition. It is noted that competitive intensity depends on the concentration, dynamics and profitability of the banking market. Competition assessment, carried out using non-structural measures, H-statistics, Boone indicators and Lerner index, showed that, since the an individual bank does not build up its range of activity through consolidation, or by redistributing its market share among participants, but due to the growing demand for banking services, and remote services in particular, competition is actually reduced. The research confirmed that the processes of concentration, consolidation and competition are interconnected, and this connection should be identified to better understand the formation of the banks’ functional strategy and their choice of the business model.
We provide a theoretical and empirical analysis of an efficient sharing of public and private flood-risk mitigation. Our analysis examines how individuals in a floodplain can best protect their ...property, given the interdependence between the public offering of structural measures and a private offering of insurance. A key theoretical finding is a separation of the risk space: under a given damage threshold, the public sector mitigates all risk, while above the threshold, the private sector offers insurance. We estimate this theory based on the Lake Champlain and Richelieu River data. We show how a public and private mix increases welfare gains and reduces overall spending on risk mitigation measures.
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