Title:
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The benefits of non-structural responses to flood risk
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Recent economic conditions and reduced funding, combined with the threat of climate change,
mean that more innovative ways of protecting people and property from the impacts of flooding
are needed, with current guidance seeking 'portfolios' of responses to flood risk. This thesis
explores the evolving flood risk management system and the role of non-structural approaches to
reducing risk by developing a conceptual model that incorporates a broad range of structural and
non-structural responses, the linkages between them and the way they contribute to managing
flood risk. The model enables coherent conversations about components of the flood risk
management system with a joint understanding of how different options interact, to allow better
decision-making and more effective communication of those decisions and the reasons behind
them. Activities with no direct benefit play a vital role in this system by enabling or increasing
the effectiveness of other responses. One such activity, the visualisation of flood risk, is explored
through the development of a flood incident management visualisation tool.
Using the model, high- level methodologies are developed to quantify the benefits of property-level
responses (including resistance and resilience measures and the movement of possessions) and
of Flood Incident Management enabling asset operation. These generic approaches are applied
to specific national and local case studies, which identify scale-appropriate methods for deriving
input data. These methods and the wider context that the conceptual model provides provide a
useful step towards a consistent approach to quantifying the benefits of non-structural responses
in a way that allows future work to build on that foundation.
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