Evaluating city resilience and services cascade effects in flooding scenarios.

Abstract

City resilience reflects the overall capacity of a city (individuals, communities, institutions, businesses and systems) to survive, adapt and thrive no matter what kinds of chronic stresses or acute shocks they experience [1]. This capacity may be acquired through adopting structural and non-structural solutions and/or introducing knowledge and intelligence in the management of cities infrastructures. In recent years, society has become increasingly aware of the risks that climate change poses to cities. Climate change is likely to result in sea level rise, irregularity in rainfall frequency and intensity, droughts and heat waves, which calls for a rapid but also informed, sustainable and cohesive response from several stakeholders. In fact, the growing diversity of hazards, increasing complexity of cities, and uncertainty associated with climate change, globalisation and rapid urbanisation have contributed to introduce urban resilience into a critical agenda [2] and reinforced and it is necessary to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable [3]. Furthermore, there is a need for models and tools that analyse urban resilience based on a multisectoral approach, considering service interdependences and cascading effects, in order to increase city’s sustainability and resilience, in particular to flooding [4]. This paper presents the work being carried out under RESCCUE Project - Resilience to Cope with Climate Change in Urban Areas (funded by EU’s Horizon 2020 Programme) regarding the assessment of the urban resilience in Lisbon, namely related to rainfall and flooding events.