Flood Susceptibility and Risk Maps as a Crucial Tool to Face the Hydrological Extremes in Developing Countries: Technical and Governance Aspects Linked by a Participatory Approach

About this Research Topic

Background

The flood frequency has increased worldwide, representing nowadays one of the most costly hazards in terms of socio-economic losses. Flood occurrence is becoming a widespread problem, with a strong impact above all in many regions of developing countries, that are experiencing an unprecedented increase in population. This has led to the increase of human settlements in high-risk areas, in which there is a very limited capacity to recover from damages caused by an inundation. Moreover, flood risk is expected to increase further in the next decades due to climate change and land-use changes at the catchment scale. In order to address this problem, a risk-based approach could be a potential way to manage and reduce flood magnitude and related damages as well as its consequences in contrast to traditional strategies aimed at protecting areas hit by recurrent floods.
In order for flood maps to be a useful tool to reduce flood losses, it is crucial to understand how they are built, what are the applied methodologies and the data required, so to improve a short and large term forecast. This requires a multidisciplinary approach involving different topics as: hydrological and statistical methods for discharge rate calculation, reliable and simple hydrodynamic inundation modeling, statistical methods for the hazard, vulnerability and resilience calculation, representation of hazard and risk maps, communication methods about flood risk to the society and stakeholders, design of flood management and emergency plans. It is also essential to take into account the needs of stakeholders, therefore to define which tools can be most directly used in high-risk areas. An important goal of this collection is to bring together research focused on the social function.
This Research Topic should emphasize the relevance of the local strategies in managing flood risk, in order to increase public awareness and preparedness to flood risk. For this reason, we encourage papers that suggest a participatory approach between researchers and local policies: new techniques for creating maps (from the simplest ones, applicable in developing countries characterized by the lack of information, such as high precision DEMs, meteorological data, up to the most detailed ones) and how these products can be easily used by stakeholders so as to be included as a fundamental tool in risk management policies.

Keywords: flood maps, hydrology, participatory approach, developing countries, local strategies

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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