Flexible and adaptive strategies for reducing flood risk while enriching our city environments

Urban flooding is an escalating global challenge, intensified by global warming, rapid urbanisation, and complex socio-economic change. Addressing this risk requires more than traditional engineering solutions; it demands an integrated, systems-level approach that brings together spatial planning, infrastructure design, policy, governance, and community engagement.

Creating Flood Resilience Across Urban Landscapes provides a comprehensive and practical guide to modern urban flood risk management. Drawing on international research and real-world experience, the book explores how resilient building standards, integrated water management, and a balanced combination of grey infrastructure and blue-green solutions can reduce both the probability and impacts of flooding. Written by leading practitioners and academics, it offers a single, authoritative reference for professionals working across diverse geographical and institutional contexts.

Key topics include:

• Regional variations in flood mechanisms, exposure, vulnerability, and resilience capacity, illustrated through case studies from Europe, Africa, North America, and South East Asia
• Increasing flood risk driven by inter-related climatic, environmental, and socio-economic change
• The combined effectiveness of Nature-Based Solutions and hard engineering interventions in urban flood mitigation
• Flexible and adaptive approaches that allow flood management systems to remain effective under deep uncertainty and changing future conditions
• Advances in flood monitoring and modelling using artificial intelligence and digital twin technologies to enhance forecasting, optimisation and real time decision support
• Monitoring requirements, and maintenance strategies essential for long-term urban flood resilience
• Community engagement approaches that strengthen preparedness, response, and post-flood recovery

Written for engineers, planners, developers, regulators, and policy-makers, this book sets out a practical, system-wide agenda for shifting from infrastructure-focused flood management to integrated resilience strategies. Ultimately, Creating Flood Resilience Across Urban Landscapes positions flood risk management as a catalyst for creating greener, fairer, and more resilient cities.

Richard Fenner is Emeritus Professor of Engineering Sustainability at the University of Cambridge. His work focuses on urban drainage, blue-green infrastructure, and urban flood resilience in both developed and developing contexts. He has led research on multiple-benefit evaluation, adaptation pathways for sequencing flood interventions, and catchment-scale approaches to managing urban surface-water flooding.

Hayley Bowman is a Senior Flood Risk Advisor at the Environment Agency in the UK, with over twenty years of experience in flood and coastal risk management. She leads the Environment Agency’s flood and coastal risk research portfolio and is a strong advocate for evidence-based policy and the integration of blue-green infrastructure in national flood risk planning and delivery.

Nigel Wright is Professor of Water and Environmental Engineering at the University of Birmingham. His research spans computational modelling of fluid flows, flood risk management, and climate change adaptation, with experience across the UK, Europe, and the United States. His work emphasises cross-disciplinary approaches to understanding and managing complex flood systems at multiple scales.