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Climate adaptation in practice: How to increase flood resilience in cities?
Swenja Surminski, Head of Adaptation Research,
Grantham Research Institute, LSE
Bilbao, 9th July 2019
Outline
1. Are we resilient and if so how much???
2. Thoughts on terminology
3. Reflection on the ‘risk’ dimension of adaptation
4. What do we know about urban flood resilience?
5. How can we support flood resilience?
6. Discussion
Resilience means different things to different people… The ability of a system, community or society exposed to
hazards to resist, absorb, accommodate to and recover
from the effects of a hazard in a timely and efficient
manner, including through the preservation and
restoration of its essential basic structures and functions.
(Keating et al. 2014; 2017)
Q: how resilient are you? Are you more
resilient than your grandparents?
4
Sustainable livelihoods framework: The 5 capitals (5Cs)
SocialCapital
HumanCapital
FinancialCapital
NaturalCapital
PhysicalCapital
ROBUSTNESS (ability to withstand a shock)
for example, housing and bridges built to withstand flood waters
REDUNDANCY (functional diversity)
for example, having many evacuation routes
RESOURCEFULNESS (ability to mobilize when threatened)
for example, a community group who can quickly turn a community centre into a flood shelter
RAPIDITY (ability to contain losses and recover in a timely manner)
for example, access to quick finance for recovery, insurance
Developed originally by the Multidisciplinary Center for Earthquake Engineering Research at the University of Buffalo in the US (MCEER)
Drivers of flood resilience – a concept
The four properties of a resilient system (4Rs)
Thoughts on terminology
Increasing climate resilience can come in many disguises, such as:
• Vulnerability reduction
• Poverty reduction
• Climate Risk Management
• Adaptation Planning
• Enterprise Risk Management
• Risk Management
• Risk Reduction
• Business Continuity
• Due Diligence
• Supply chain management
Important: adaptation considers
current and future climate impacts
IPCC Working group II perspective:
Risk = exposure + vulnerability + hazard
“Risk from a changing
climate comes
from vulnerability (lack of
preparedness) and
exposure (people or
assets in harm’s way)
overlapping with hazards
(triggering climate events
or trends)”
Internationally just 12% of funds for disaster
management are put into risk reduction and
prevention (adaptation/resilience) prior to a
disaster, while 88% go into funding responses
during, and after an event, including repair or
reconstruction.
(Tanner, T.M., Surminski, S., Wilkinson, E., Reid, R.,Rentschler, J.E., and Rajput,S. (2015)The
Triple Dividend of Resilience, World Bank/ODI)
Internationally just 12% of funds for disaster
management are put into risk reduction and
prevention (adaptation/ resilience) prior to a
disaster, while 88% go into funding responses
during, and after an event, including repair or
reconstruction.
(Tanner, T.M., Surminski, S., Wilkinson, E., Reid, R.,Rentschler, J.E., and Rajput,S. (2015)The Triple Dividend of Resilience, World Bank/ODI)
Main page: https://floodresilience.net/
Pre-event resilience building is the focus of our efforts. We know that
prevention is cost- effective, but nearly 87 percent of disaster-related aid
spending goes into emergency response, reconstruction and rehabilitation,
and only 13 percent toward reducing and managing risks before they became
disasters. But flood resilience cannot be enhanced by one stakeholder alone.
That is why, in 2013, we created a multi-organizational partnership to
enhance community flood resilience. We call this the Zurich Flood Resilience
Alliance (‘the Alliance’).
Urban resilience – why so important?
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
1950 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020
Glo
ba
l u
rba
n p
op
ula
tio
n [
%]
United Nations Population Division (2018)
Gu et al. (2015)
UrbanizationUrban population at risk
• Substantial increase in the share of urban population since the early 1900, sitting now at around 50%, expected
to reach 2/3 by 2050
• Urban population at risk based on historic flood events (1985 to 2003) in terms of their frequency and magnitude
(economic losses, mortality), high risk areas defined as areas with flood frequencies being in the top 30% globally.
While many cities are only in a medium exposure range their vulnerability in terms of mortality and economic loss
is high.
Hurricane Irma in Haiti... …and Florida (2017)
Q: How to support urban flood resilience?
Actors in Urban Flood Decision-Making
• In urban flood decision-making different group of stakeholders are involved with various interests, preferences and perceptions
Developers Planners Local Authorities
Surveyors Property owners
Mortgage providers/
Banks
Insurers
Ideas &
Development
Construction
&
DevelopmentHomes
Conceptual framework Flood risk management (FRM) cycle
Surminski and Thieken 2017
Building Back Better
How are decision-makers informed?
Formal rules: laws, policies
and regulations
Institutional rules: minimizing
costs and risks, maximizing
benefits and resilience
Flood hazard, vulnerability,
exposure analysis: flood
probability and severity maps,
vulnerability and exposure
maps
Cost-benefit analysis,
Cost-effective analysis
McDermott and Surminski, 2018
Urban Flood Resilience Interventions
1. Prospective risk reduction
To keep people and properties away from flood
land use policies, building codes, …
2. Corrective risk reduction
To reduce flood risk of properties that are already at risk areas
flood defence, property flood protection measures, natural barriers in riversides
3. Preparedness
Actions taken prior to potential disasters to prepare communities for flood
Flood forecasting and flood warning, …
4. Response To mitigate impacts of flood during or immediately after flood happens
Emergency management, community flood action plan, …
5. Recovery To cope, reconstruct and built back better
Insurance, government grants, …
Tracking community – level flood resilience to identify
strengths and weaknesses
3038
3021
31 31
2636
21
3633
54
3640
33 3525
44
22
37
40
5849 54
27
38
19
52
43
60
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
no
rmal
ized
sco
res
rural
2937
28 3035 34 303741
32 28
49
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
no
rmal
ized
sco
res
rural peri-urban urban
Theme-specific strength and weaknesses
Laurien & Keating, 2018
Laurien & Keating, 2018
Disaster risk management strength and weaknesses
Results from 4000 households in 88 communities across Asia
A new approach for a more holistic assessment of the benefits of
climate resilience, adaptation and disaster risk management
• The starting point: Incomplete cost-benefit analyses result in insufficientinvestments in adaptation and resilience.
• The aim: Change the way in which investments are decided andevaluated.
• Message to Ministry of Finance officials: To invest in adaptation and resilience is to securegrowth and development.
.
The bigger picture: The business
case for resilience Avoided losses (1st Dividend of Resilience): • The immediate and long-run losses and damages that climate risk
reduction measures can prevent or reduce in the event of a disaster or a loss.
Development dividend (2nd Dividend of Resilience):• The development potential that is unlocked when background risk is
reduced through risk reduction and adaptation measures. This includes innovation, entrepreneurship, and investments, and is independent of the occurrence of any actual disaster.
Co-benefits (3rd Dividend of Resilience):• Co-benefits are any benefits that accrue in addition to the primary risk
reduction objectives of avoiding losses and boosting development. Co-benefits can include economic, social and environmental aspects, and be non- adaptation or disaster risk management specific.
Further reading
❖ Adger, W.N., et al. (2018) “Advances in risk assessment for climate change adaptation policy”. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences, 376: 20180106.
❖ Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL). (2019). Physical Risk Framework: Understanding the Impacts of Climate Change on Real Estate Lending and Investment Portfolios. Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership. https://www.cisl.cam.ac.uk/resources/sustainable-finance-publications/physical-risk-framework-understanding-the-impact-of-climate-change-on-real-estate-lending-and-investment-portfolios
❖ Chambwera, M., et al. (2014). “Economics of adaptation”. Field, C., et al. (eds.) Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Part A: Global and Sectoral Aspects. Contribution of Working Group II to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Cambridge University Press. http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg2/WGIIAR5-Chap17_FINAL.pdf
❖ Fankhauser, S. and T. McDermott, (eds.) (2016). The Economics of Climate-Resilient Development. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar (Chapter 1).
❖ Mechler, R. et. al. (eds.) (2018). Loss and Damage from Climate Change. Springer. https://www.springer.com/gb/book/9783319720258
❖ Tanner, T.M., Surminski, S., Wilkinson, E., Reid, R.,Rentschler, J.E., and Rajput,S. (2015)The Triple Dividend of Resilience
❖ McDermott and Surminski (2018): ‘Normative interpretation of climate risk assessment for urban decision making - an exploratory study at the city scale in Cork, Ireland’, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, 376 (2121)
❖ Aerts, Botzen, Clarke, Hall, Merz, Michel-Kerjan, Mysiak, Surminski, Kunreuther (2018): Integrating Human BehaviorDynamics into Climate Disaster Risk Assessment, Nature Climate Change, 8 (3). pp. 193-199.
❖ Crick, Jenkins and Surminski (2018): Strengthening insurance partnerships in the face of climate change - insights from an agent-based model of flood insurance in the UK, Science of the Total Environment.
