This book focuses on policies and governance on how to build the resilience of cities to droughts and floods in the short-, medium-, and long-term. There are discussions on how cities prepare for, cope with, learn from, manage, and recover from these extreme events. The chapters also consider aspects such as changing paradigms, policy responses under uncertainty, scenario development, institutional responses, adaptive forecasting, governance perspectives, infrastructure development, overall investments, and technological innovation. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction are discussed at length. Most of the cities and regions studied are in Asia, however, cities from Oceania, Europe, Africa, and North America are also included. Analyses are not limited to cities but to the basins and regions from which urban populations obtain their resources, and on which their resilience depends. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Water Resources Development.

Urban Disasters and Resilience in Asia presents the latest information on the intensity and frequency of disasters. Specifically, the fact that, in urban areas, more than 50% of the world's population is living on just 2% of the land surface, with most of these cities located in Asia and developing countries that have high vulnerability and intensification. The book offers an in-depth and multidisciplinary approach to reducing the impact of disasters by examining specific evidence from events in these areas that can be used to develop best practices and increase urban resilience worldwide. As urban resilience is largely a function of resilient and resourceful citizens, building cities which are more resilient internally and externally can lead to more productive economic returns. In an era of rapid urbanization and increasing disaster risks and vulnerabilities in Asian cities, Urban Disasters and Resilience in Asia is an invaluable tool for policy makers, researchers, and practitioners working in both public and private sectors. - Explores a broad range of aspects of disaster and urban resiliency, including environmental, economic, architectural, and engineering factors - Bridges the gap between urban resilience and rural areas and community building - Provides evidence-based data that can lead to improved disaster resiliency in urban Asia - Focuses on Asian cities, some of the most densely populated areas on the planet, where disasters are particularly devastating

This book presents water insecurity issues in urban areas while developing a water security index and explores the innovative approaches to water development and management with examples from Asian cities. The urban water crisis is a global phenomenon, but it is more obvious in the megacities of the developing world. Urban drought, although not a familiar term, will pose a significant threat to humankind in the near future, especially in the context of increasing population in cities. Many cities are already unable to provide safe, clean water for their citizens. Some of the world’s largest cities depend heavily on groundwater for their water supply. It is unlikely that dependence on aquifers, which take many years to recharge, will be sustainable. As urban populations grow, water use will need to shift from agriculture to municipal and industrial uses, making decisions about allocating between different sectors difficult. Inefficient water-use practices by households and industries, fragmented management of water between sectors and institutions, climate-induced water shortages, environmental degradation of water sources, and inadequate use of alternate sources are also issues of major concern. Despite recent advances in the literature, there exists a considerable gap in attempting an integrated water-resource management approach. Covering all aspects of urban drought and water insecurity, this book is a valuable resource for students, researchers, academics, policy makers, and development practitioners.

This book presents articles from the Second International Conference on Sustainable Civil Engineering and Architecture, held on 30 October 2021 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The conference brings together international experts from both academia and industry to share their knowledge, expertise, to facilitate collaboration and improve cooperation in the field. The book highlights the latest advances in sustainable architecture and civil engineering, covering topics such as offshore structures, structural engineering, construction materials, and architecture.

As the cities of the world increasingly come under threat from crisis and disaster, planners are searching for ways to build resilience into the foundations of modern urban centres. This important book provides a comprehensive account of the theory and practice of urban resilience in response to a range of disruptions, including terrorism, climate change and economic crises. It examines how the concepts and principles of resilience exert increasing significant influence over the form and function of planning. Discussing a 'politics of resilience' in which fundamental questions of social and spatial justice are posed, this book examines how urban planners are increasingly tasked with the responsibility of safeguarding the future of urbanised centres and those that live in them. Drawing on international examples and detailed case-studies, this book provides a nuanced account of the uses, and misuses, of resilience and points a way forward for planning activity, from an approach that is too often narrowly technical in focus towards an integrated and adaptable model for coping with risk, crisis and uncertainty. It will make essential reading for students of urban planning and researchers alike.

Resilience has become a very topical issue transcending many spheres and sectors of sustainable urban development. This book presents a resilience framework for sustainable cities and towns in Africa. The rise in informal settlements is due to the urban planning practices in most African cities that rarely reflect the realities of urban life and environment for urban development. Aspects of places, people and process are central to the concept of urban resilience and sustainable urban growth. It stems from the observation that urban vulnerability is on the increase in Zimbabwe and beyond. In history, disasters have adversely affected nations across the world, inflicting wide ranging losses on one hand while on the other hand creating development opportunities for urban communities. Cooperation in disaster management is a strategy for minimising losses and uplifting the affected urban settlements. The significance of urban planning and design in the growth and development of sustainable urban centres is well documented. Urbanisation has brought with it challenges that most developing countries such as Zimbabwe are not equipped to handle. This has been accompanied by problems such as overpopulation, overcrowding, shortages of resources and the growth of slum settlements. There need is to seriously consider urban planning and design in order to come up with contemporary designs that are resilient to current urban challenges. There are major gaps in urban resilience building for instance in Harare and the local authority needs to prioritise investment in resilient urban infrastructure. ​

The blue economy is a major driver of urban and regional development, creating millions of local jobs in water-dependent sectors such as fisheries, tourism, and shipping. However, it can also contribute to carbon emissions and ecosystem degradation, while its reliance on freshwater, coastal and marine ecosystems exposes it to the impacts of climate change. As the places where the blue economy takes place, creates value and provides jobs, cities and regions play a key role in unlocking the potential of a resilient blue economy that preserves the ecosystems that sustain it. Building on a global survey of 80+ cities, regions and basins, this report highlights the costs and benefits of the blue economy at subnational level, shedding light on the link between the blue economy and water security. This analysis provides an overview of the multi-level governance of the blue economy and related gaps. It calls on cities and regions to develop resilient, inclusive, sustainable and circular (RISC-proof) blue economies by establishing the right governance conditions related to policy making, policy coherence and policy implementation. The report concludes with a RISC Assessment Framework that offers a self-evaluation tool for subnational governments.

This new handbook brings together various views and experiences of the impacts of flooding and its management in Africa, Asia and Latin America by drawing from traditional and modern approaches adopted by communities, homeowners, academics, project managers, institutions and policy makers. Key stakeholders provide insights and perspectives on flood hazards, flood impacts, flood control and adaptation strategies across these regions. The inclusion of policy makers, emergency responders, leaders of key organizations and managers of flood defence projects makes this volume a unique addition to the flood management literature. The chapters are organized to reveal various impacts and challenges associated with the management of flooding, including response and recovery. The chapter contributions bring together the different impacts of flooding and propose various mitigation approaches. They describe procedures for managing flooding and reducing the impacts from the perspectives of policy makers, environmental planners and restorers of flood-affected communities. Also, the book considers some of the related aspects including land use, waste management, drainage systems, security challenges, urban planning and development and their contributions to flooding. The book's primary target is experienced researchers and practitioners in flood risk management. It would also serve as a key text for postgraduate students studying related programmes. Inhabitants of flood prone communities in such developing countries will also find the text an important resource for guidance and understanding. This multi-disciplinary book represents a valuable contribution for a wide range of professionals (e.g. in engineering, built environment, health, retail, etc) who are interested in flood control and management and/or faced with flood-related challenges in the course of their work.

Against the background of unprecedented rates of urbanisation in the Global South, leading to massive social, economic and environmental transformations, this book engages with the dire need to understand the ecology of such settings as the foundation for fostering sustainable and resilient human settlements in contexts that are very different to the Global North. It does so by bringing together scholars from around the world, drawing together research and case studies from across the Global South to illustrate, in an interdisciplinary and comprehensive fashion, the ecology of towns and cities in the Global South. Framed using a social-ecological systems lens, it provides the reader with an in-depth analysis and understanding of the ecological dynamics and ecosystem services and disservices within the complex and rapidly changing towns and cities of the Global South, a region with currently scarce representation in most of the urban ecology literature. As such the book makes a call for greater geographical balance in urban ecology research leading towards a more global understanding and frameworks. The book embraces the complexity of these rapid transformations for ecological and environmental management and how the ecosystems and the benefits they provide shape local ecologies, livelihood opportunities and human wellbeing, and how such knowledge can be mobilised towards improved urban design and management and thus urban sustainability.

Urban water security is crucial for achieving sustainable development, peace, and human health and well-being. Framing urban water security is challenging due to the complexity and uncertainty of its definition and assessment framework. Several studies have assessed water security in widely divergent ways by granting priority indicators equal weight without considering or adapting to local conditions. This dissertation develops a new urban water security definition and assessment framework applicable to water scarce cities, with a focus on Madaba, Jordan. It takes a novel and systematic approach to assessing urban water security and culminates in integrated urban water security index (IUWSI) as a diagnostic tool and guide management actions. The dissertation suggests a new working definition of urban water security based on the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goal 6.1 on safe drinking water for all and the human rights on water and sanitation as follows: The dynamic capacity of water systems and stakeholders to safeguard sustainable and equitable access to water of adequate quantity and acceptable quality that is continuously, physically and legally available at an affordable cost for sustaining livelihoods, human well-being and socioeconomic development, ensuring protection against waterborne pollution and water-related disasters, and for preserving ecosystems in a climate of peace and political stability. This proposed definition captures issues at the urban level of technical, environmental and socioeconomic indicators that emphasize credibility, legitimacy and salience. The assessment framework establishes a criteria hierarchy, consisting of four main dimensions to achieve urban water security: drinking water and human well-being, ecosystem, climate change and water-related hazards and socioeconomic aspects (together, DECS). The framework enables the analysis of relationships and trade-offs between urbanization, water security and DECS indicators. The dissertation also provides a structured analysis to understand how urban water is managed in intermittent water supply system, by conducting a water balance analysis after quantifying the components of water losses in Madaba’s water distribution network. The findings showed that Madaba's non-revenue water (NRW) amounted to annual loss of about 3.5 million m3, corresponding to financial losses of 2.8 million USD to the utility, of which 1.7 million USD is the cost of real losses. The dissertation provided an intervention strategy for strengthening infrastructure resilience and reducing leakage via the infrastructure, repair, economic, awareness and pressure (IREAP) framework. The IREAP framework provides a robust strategy to shift intermittent water supply (IWS) into continuous water supply. The IUWSI highlighted the state of water security in Madaba, Jordan and identified the means of implementation to move towards achieving urban water security based on the priorities for Madaba. The drinking water and human wellbeing dimension was the most important priority, receiving a weight of 66.22%, followed by ecosystem (17.15%), socioeconomic aspects (10.18%), and climate change and water-related hazards (6.45%) dimensions. The IUWSI indicated that the urban water security in Madaba is reasonable with a score of 2.5/5 and can meet the minimum requirements in several dimensions, but nonetheless, it has many loopholes to cover. Gaps are clear in the climate change and water-related hazards, and socioeconomic dimensions with scores of 1.6/5 and 2.237/5 respectively. Additionally, specific shortcomings are found in indicators such as water availability, reliability, diversity, and public health. The IUWSI framework assists with a rational and evidence-based decision-making process, which is important for enhancing water resource management in water-scarce cities