Urban Flood Management

Along with windstorms, floods are the most common and widespread of all natural disasters. Although they can often be predicted, they cause loss of life, damage and destruction, as many urban communities are located near coasts and rivers. In terms of victims, floods are responsible for more than half the deaths caused by natural catastrophes. As flood events appear to be rapidly increasing worldwide, an advanced and universal approach is needed to manage urban Floods and reduce their impact.

Urban Flood Management presents a comprehensive and multi-disciplinary introduction to urban Floods for a global audience. It uniquely integrates the expertise from disciplines such as hydrology, sociology, architecture, urban design, construction and water resources engineering. The subject is approached from an international perspective and multiple case studies, exercises, expert advises and literature recommendations are included to support the theory and illustrations.

Developed by a team of specialists, this textbook is intended for urban flood management education of hydrology, geography, civil and environmental engineering and management students at university level. Moreover, researchers and professionals will find this book useful as a reference. A supporting website can be addressed for current information.

Chris Zevenbergen is Professor of Flood Resilience of Urban Sytems at UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education in Delft, Director of the Flood Resilient Group in collaboration with Delft University of Technology and Managing Director of Business Development at DuraVermeer Group, The Netherlands. Dr. Zevebergen has Masters degree in Ecology from the Agricultural University Wageningen and a Doctorate in Environmental Engineering from the University Utrecht. He worked as a researcher on various environmental issues related to the building industry, such as environmental impact assessments, product development, emission modelling, testing procedures, building codes and guidelines in the 1980s followed by 10 years research and consultancy in environmental engineering and water management. He has a strong affinity with the ecological, socio-economic, institutional aspects of urban planning and water management. He is member of the board of the Dutch Living with Water programme and the Netherlands Water Partnership, member of the Japanese-Dutch platform on Water Management and chairman of the EU COST action C22 on Urban Flood Management. He holds several patents in the field of environmental engineering and delta-technology. On these research topics he has published about 40 articles and edited 3 books.