Multidimensional Decision-Making Process for Managing Flood Risks in Postmodern Cities: Challenges, Trends, and Sharing Insights to Construct Models That Deal with Climate Changes

The growth of urbanization has challenged governments to incorporate procedures for managing and mitigating risks in their local planning. In practice, climate change and increases in the urban population have led to an increase in the extent and frequency of flooding and the possibility of various forms of damage from flooding in the future. In this context, the great challenge faced by public managers who are responsible for managing risk from flooding in postmodern societies is to reconcile the need for sustainable development in a way that respects the limitations that Nature imposes. This is so that urban societies can thrive which entails adapting policies for risk in line with trends that point to the possibility of natural disasters occurring more frequently. Since the perceptions of people likely to be affected by floods are critical to successfully implementing policies that have been adapted to the threat from climatic change, these policies need to take multiple strategic objectives into account. However, these often conflict with each other. It is therefore appropriate in this case to apply the widely used multicriteria decision-aiding/-making (MCDA/M) approach in order to tackle this problem. This chapter also discusses the main causes of the increase of flooding in urban centers, and lists various dimensions of risk assessment, including the social, financial, and environmental impacts of flooding. Some proposals for modeling how to mitigate the risks from flooding are presented, as are trends and insights into climate change in the future. This is aided by computational hydrologic and georeferencing (GIS) tools. It is hoped that this approach will contribute to public policies for preventing damage being improved and to urban areas becoming more resilient vis-à-vis threats from climate change. Potential benefits of this approach and comments regarding the design of the models proposed are discussed throughout the chapter.