09.04.2013
Type: Document Language: English Author: G. Di Baldassarre , A. Viglione , G. Carr , L. Kuil , J. L. Salinas , and G. Blöschl
Over history, humankind has tended to settle near streams because of the role of rivers as transportation cor- ridors and the fertility of riparian areas. However, human settlements in floodplains have been threatened by the risk of flooding. Possible responses have been to resettle away and/or modify the river system by building flood control structures. This has led to a complex web of interactions and feedback mechanisms between hydrological and social pro- cesses in settled floodplains. This paper is an attempt to con- ceptualise these interplays for hypothetical human-flood sys- tems. We develop a simple, dynamic model to represent the interactions and feedback loops between hydrological and social processes. The model is then used to explore the dy- namics of the human-flood system and the effect of changing individual characteristics, including external forcing such as technological development. The results show that the con- ceptual model is able to reproduce reciprocal effects between floods and people as well as the emergence of typical pat- terns. For instance, when levees are built or raised to pro- tect floodplain areas, their presence not only reduces the fre- quency of flooding, but also exacerbates high water levels. Then, because of this exacerbation, higher flood protection levels are required by society. As a result, more and more flooding events are avoided, but rare and catastrophic events take place.
Keywords: socio-hydrology, human-flood interactions, flood risk, exposure