NAARM/MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA

Issue:
The Birrarung/Yarra River, Melbourne’s central waterway, has had ongoing issues with pollution and inappropriate developments constructed along its corridor.

Response:
After lengthy and exhaustive consultation with community, the Yarra River Protection (Wilip-gin Birrarung murron) Act 2017 was passed by the Victorian government, recognising the river as a living natural entity and the Traditional Owners as its custodians. The Birrarung Council, a statutory advisory body serves as an independent voice for the river, advocating for, protecting and managing the river, while providing advice to the 17 local councils and authorities across the catchment. At least two Traditional Owners are directly represented on the Council. In this way Indigenous and non-Indigenous members work together in partnership to achieve better long-term outcomes for the river and its environs.

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How can Aboriginal and community perspectives help us care for the river?

ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS

Issue:
The port city of Rotterdam sits on a plain in the Scheldt-Meuse-Rhine delta, and is vulnerable to inundation from extreme rainfalls, sea level rise and storm surges.

Response:
The city recently adopted a holistic approach to water management, focusing on resilience to climate change. The current plan addresses six themes: precipitation, subsidence, urban heat, groundwater, drought and flooding. Integration of water management in small scale developments with water commons, sponge gardens and floating settlements have increased water infiltration and improved outdoor public spaces. Public spaces like Water Square, designed for recreation, store stormwater runoff and improve water quality before it is released back into the river. Small initiatives like these encourages communities, businesses and organisations to collaborate on local design projects.

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What small collaborative urban projects might help manage flooding?

HOUSTON, USA

Issue:
In 2017 Hurricane Harvey dropped 1.3 metres of rain on Houston, making it the third intense rain event in one and a half years and causing record flooding in the city. Two dams in the upper catchment filled quickly, and water was released to protect their structural integrity which caused severe and extensive flooding that remained in some parts of the city for weeks.

Response:
Houston’s CBD was re-engineered to hold large volumes of flood water before it enters the city. The new park design increases building setbacks and repurposes abandoned space underneath the city’s elevated highways.

The new active open space network and public gathering spaces improve access to the park for neighbouring communities fostering connections between the community and the river. Four new bridges connect local communities to the park, and all infrastructure, cycleways, footpaths and planting are designed to accommodate episodic flooding.

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Can waterways be redesigned to hold more flooding and support community?

JAKARTA, INDONESIA

Issue:
Almost half of Jakarta is estimated to lie below sea level. A major flood in 2013 saw 20,000 people evacuated from their homes and 47 deaths.

Response:
Inspired by the role played during the 2013 floods by social media and the strong cultural spirit of gotong royong (mutual aid), software designers created Peta Bencana, an open-source platform which uses bots to track posts with keywords such as ‘flood’ and then requests the user to complete a simple survey allowing them to add their information to a digital map in real time. Combined with information added by government sources such as official warnings, PetaBencana.id allows anyone to access a free map and view live data of an ongoing natural disaster, which can help guide and structure humanitarian efforts.

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How can we harness real-time data to provide reliable early warning systems?

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK

Issue:
Over the past 10 years most major cities in Denmark have seen flooding caused by severe weather events. One of the worst was caused by a storm over Copenhagen on 2 July 2011. As a result of the damage, thirty percent of building owners made insurance claims after the event totalling $1.2 billion AUD. By 2100 future flood intensity matching or exceeding the 2011 event is predicted to occur every four decades as a result of climate change.

Response:
Copenhagen has been divided into sub-catchments, each with a range of different adaptive strategies to store or drain excess flood water. The city aims to implement these measures over a time frame of 20 years. Tactics include reopening streams and building new canals, adapting roads and side streets, adding high kerbs to direct heavy flows and adapting parks to create large detention areas to serve as temporary lakes during flood events. Only in the most densely built-up areas will water continue to be directed into the harbour through large pipes.

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Are Copenhagen’s mix of adaptive strategies appropriate for regional towns?

BRISBANE, AUSTRALIA

Issue:
In 2011 after 8 years of drought, 160mm of rain fell in 36hrs over 1,000,000 sq kms in SE Queensland. Flooding occurred across the city and its hinterland. In the upper catchment the Wivenhoe Dam exceeded capacity and had to be emptied at the peak of the flood, exacerbating its impact.

Response:
The ‘Water Futures’ project by James Davidson Architect, the result of six years of community consultation and research, divides the catchment into different zones with different water management strategies. The Conserve zone increases dam capacity and reduces sediment run-off. In the Transition zone, in rural areas eco-agriculture and riparian corridors store, delay and recharge water, and in the suburbs small ‘soaks’ detain diverted river water. The highly urbanised Constricted zone integrates water-sensitive urban design planning, including sponge streets, levee parks, flood plazas and revegetated local creeks. The Coastal zone focuses on improved sediment control and regeneration of natural coastal buffers such as sand dunes and wetlands.

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Do catchment-wide strategies offer solutions for the Northern Rivers?

MEKONG DELTA, VIETNAM

Issue:
The Mekong Delta in Vietnam covers an area of over 40,000 sq kms and accommodates over 20 million people. The huge catchment experiences regular annual cycles of monsoonal rainfall and severe flooding.

Response:
People have lived here for thousands of years making the most of the regular flooding that brings fertile sediments and enriches agriculture and aquaculture. Farmers have adapted by growing a native wet-rice variety known as ‘floating rice’. Village houses are all constructed on stilts above known peak flood levels. They can easily be raised higher if necessary. The dry season’s transport system of bicycles and motorcycles are traded in for boats in the wet season and every child learns boating skills by the age of 10. Elevated footbridges connecting villages in the wet season protect embankments and river edges from being damaged when waterlogged or underwater.

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Can we adapt to accept flooding as an integral part of the landscape?

HOUSTON, USA

Issue:
Inaccurate weather reporting can put lives at risk, negatively influencing the speed and efficiency of disaster response. Localised rainfall that isn’t measured can’t be input into flood prediction models.

Response:
Personal Weather Stations (PWS) can be helpful in flood prediction as they provide data to fill in the gaps left by government-owned weather stations. People who live in flood zones are likely to be highly motivated to provide more accurate data to improve local forecasting. However there are barriers to the adoption of PWS in flood-affected regions including the lack of home ownership amongst people living in flood zones and the purchase cost for people on low incomes. Financial subsidies for installing PWS may be a way of addressing these issues.

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Can government collaborate with communities to improve flood prediction?

CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND

Issue:
Community-led organisations such as Re-Start and Life in Vacant Spaces quickly activated new life in the vacant city centre. Pop-up entertainment events such as “Dance-O-Mat” (a coin-operated dance floor connected to a music source via a headphone jack) helped reboot vibrancy and diversity. Soon after, the City Council together with Greening the Rubble opened the Shipping Container shopping mall, still an important community landmark, which encouraged business activity to resume in the city centre.

Response:
On 22 February 2011, in Aotearoa New Zealand, an earthquake of magnitude 6.3 devastated Christchurch, the country’s third most populous city. 185 people died, infrastructure collapsed and most of the CBD buildings were damaged. In the immediate aftermath the Canterbury Group and the Christchurch City Council formed separate Emergency Operating Centres but the siloed nature of these agencies caused management duplication and confusion. People didn’t know where to access timely, relevant and vital information necessary to recover. One year later more than a quarter of the buildings in the CBD were still awaiting demolition.

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What services are essential to support a faster return to normal life?

KUKU, AOTEAROA, NEW ZEALAND

Issue:
The Māori coastal farming communities of Kuku in Aotearoa/New Zealand are vulnerable to coastal flooding. Wetlands have been drained, coastal lowland forests cleared and biodiversity lost to dairy monocultures. The community is rural and not able to easily access the government support they need.

Response:
In a collaborative project Māori leaders and communities engaged with scientists and landscape architects to find adaptive solutions to address flooding associated with sea level rise. The approach blended western science with Māori methods of understanding, managing and living with the land to develop a series of climate indicators that could trigger the adoption of new farming practices, the regeneration of wetlands and a shift to high ground if and when impacts occurred. This slow approach provided process and time for the community to build capacity, develop ownership of ecological issues and build economic sustainability.

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Can Indigenous knowledge help develop site responsive adaptive strategies?

CEDAR RAPIDS, USA

Issue:
Cedar Rapids is a city of 200,000 people in Iowa with a demography that includes many people who are socially vulnerable. Located on the Cedar River, the city floods regularly. In 2008 floods exceeded the 500 year line, inundating over 25 sq kms of the city, displacing more than 18,000 residents, including many who were in affordable housing.

Response:
The 2008 event precipitated a program to renew the city, provide floodable recreation space, and accommodate displaced residents without disconnecting social cohesion. Voluntary buy-outs ensued, along with new river-edge greenways, flood infrastructure and a developer-led reconstruction program on the land that remained. Over 1,300 properties were acquired. To keep neighbourhood communities intact some redevelopment occurred within the flooded areas. Results have been mixed. Environmental benefits were well-received and some neighbourhoods flourished, but social issues remain. Many renters lost long-term homes, new homes were unaffordable and communities divided. Lack of transparency about the process surfaced as a major issue.

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What are the most equitable strategies for buyouts, redevelopment and managed retreat?

THE NETHERLANDS

Issue:
The Netherlands is known as the Low Countries because large areas are at or below sea level. Much of the country has been reclaimed from coastal wetlands and is prone to regular and serious flooding.

Response:
Co-operative action has always been part of Dutch culture. In the Middle Ages, collective organisations were established to manage the infrastructure required to maintain polders, areas of low-lying farmland protected by dykes (including the characteristic windmills that were used to pump water). Cooperation was thus inculcated in Dutch communities, who all understood the risk of flooding. In the 1980s, the Dutch term poldermodel was applied to a consensus-based politics within the Netherlands where different interest groups are encouraged to co-operate to resolve social and economic conflicts. This approach high-lights the potential for environmental action to drive prosperous and healthy communities.

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What types of co-operatives will support community resilience in the Northern Rivers?

PARIS, FRANCE

Issue:
R-urban is an organisation developed in response to a lack of governmental action on climate, social and economic issues. Its goal is to move towards local production and consumption through a radical shift in lifestyles and community participation, promoting resilience by helping communities adapt to challenges such as the over-reliance on global food markets and supply chains for materials.

Response:
Colombes, France, a suburb of Paris with a population of 80,000 people hosted a pilot project of urban hubs 500 metres apart which were run and facilitated by residents. There were three categories of hub: AgroCité, a space for urban agriculture composed of a micro-farm, community gardens and cultural spaces to provide local food security, employment and engagement; RecycLab, a recycling station to store and recycle locally salvaged materials, driving the circular economy and building local expertise; and EcoHab a community housing project with public housing and temporary residences with shared facilities and systems to provide affordable housing and reduce homelessness.

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What do communities need to become even more self-reliant?

NIJMEGEN, THE NETHERLANDS

Issue:
In spite of the Netherlands’ centuries-long history of water management, devastating and widespread floods in 1993 and 1995 forced a rethink of the country’s water-management strategy. In 2007 the Room for the River Agency was created by the national government. Over 30 projects were undertaken across Holland’s four main rivers—the Rhine, the Meuse, the Waal and the IJssel—with the aim of mitigating the effects of increased flooding due to climate change. This was done by finding ways to allow the rivers to flood without placing people and property at risk.

Response:
One such project is the river bypass channel in the town of Nijmegen on the Waal River. The project created a new river channel beside the existing town, with a series of open spaces, such as nature parks, beaches, cycling tracks and recreation facilities. In this way the river was not only given space to expand in extreme conditions, but the local community could also make use of the riverfront and reconnect with the water.

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Can we redesign rivers to minimise flood damage to town centres?

KLAMATH, USA

Issue:
Constructed in 1902, the Klamath Project was one of the first large-scale water-management schemes developed in the US. It diverted water into canals and drained wetlands, providing farmers with access to a regular supply of water for irrigation. The project had a major negative impact on the environment and wetland habitats for many important migratory bird species were destroyed.

Response:
In the 1990s an alternative approach was adopted. Dubbed ‘Walking Wetlands’, it encouraged the rotation of agricultural land uses with flooded wetlands much like traditional agricultural crop rotation. This improved conservation outcomes without destroying agricultural productivity, even improving crop yields through enhanced soil fertility.

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Can farmland do more?

VALMEYER, USA

Issue:
The small town of Valmeyer is located on the Mississippi River floodplain in Illinois. In 1993 adverse weather conditions, above average soil moisture and reservoir levels, and the closing of flood gates upstream caused a drastic and rapid increase in the river level. Flooding created 15 billion USD of damage across nearly 10 states. 50 people died.

Response:
After the flood inundated Valmeyer, town leaders with the assistance of the federal government elected to relocate the town to a site previously used as farmland, 120m above the floodplain. To alleviate the financial burden on Valmeyer’s residents a government buyout program paid residents the pre-flood value of their homes (11.7 million USD for 334 plots of land). Although 60% voted to move to New Valmeyer, 40% elected to stay in the vulnerable yet scenic Old Valmeyer. The population of New Valmeyer has grown steadily since 2000.

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Under what conditions would relocation be acceptable?