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Mombasa City in Kenya is one of the most vulnerable towns to flood risk due to its low-lying coastal location. Those at the highest risk in the city are households living in the flood-prone informal settlements. However, little is known about the perception of these vulnerable households to the flood risks and its health impacts, which is important for developing effective long-term adaptation strategies. The purpose of this paper is to examine the general perception of the residents regarding flood risks, its impact on their health and their adaptation strategies.

This study surveyed 390 randomly selected households in three informal settlements in the city of Mombasa using a semi-structured questionnaire. This was supplemented with six focus group discussions (FDGs) and six key informant interviews (KIIs).

The majority of respondent households perceive future flooding as high risk or severe with high negative health impact. Despite this, many do not evacuate their homes because they do not have alternative places to move to. Flooding was indicated to have had a negative physical and mental health impact on members of households. Although majority of households had taken some adaptation measures, most of these were short term, mainly due to financial constraints, lack of knowledge and government support. Perception of flood risk and gender were found to have a strong influence on taking long-term adaptation measures at the household level.

Reducing flood risk and averting its health consequences in flood-prone informal settlements require empowering and supporting those living in these areas with ability to initiate long-term adaptation measures and creating awareness about future risks.

This study provides evidence about how residents of flood-prone informal settlements perceive flood risk and how the exposures to perennial flooding impact their health. The paper augments existing knowledge of flood risk in poor urban neighborhoods of developing countries.

The UK has experienced a number of flood events in recent years, and the intensity and frequency of such events are forecast to further increase in future due to changing climatic conditions. Accordingly, enhancing the resilience of small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) – which form an important segment in a society – to flood risk, has emerged as an important issue. However, SMEs often tend to underestimate the risk of flooding which tends to have a low priority in their business agenda. The purpose of this paper is to undertake an investigation of adaptation to the risk of flooding considering community‐level measures, individual‐level property protection, and business continuity and resilience measures.

A total of four short case studies were conducted among SMEs to identify their response to flood risk, and what measures have been undertaken to manage the risk of flooding.

It was observed that SMEs have implemented different property‐level protection measures and generic business continuity/risk management measures, based on their requirements, to achieve a desired level of protection.

SMEs are likely to positively respond to property‐level adaptation following a post‐flood situation. It is important that information such as costs/benefits of such measures and different options available are made accessible to SMEs affected by a flood event.

Implementation of property‐level adaptation measures will contribute towards the long term adaptation of the existing building stock to changing climatic conditions.

The paper contributes towards policy making on flood risk adaptation and SME decision making, and informs policy makers and practitioners.

Purpose – Flooding has become a recurring phenomenal in most cities in Nigeria. The 26 August 2011 flooding disaster which occurred in Ibadan is only an indication of magnitude of flooding problem in Nigerian cities. This chapter examines the impacts, vulnerability factors and disaster risk management framework in Ibadan metropolis.

Methodology/Approach – The survey design was used for the study and covers eleven local government areas (LGAs) affected by the flood. The study utilized both primary and secondary data. The primary data were obtained by physical observation and in-depth interview of affected households. In-depth interview was also carried out with key officials of State Ministry of Environment and Housing. The study also relies on the data from the Oyo State Government Task Force on Flood Prevention and Management report.

Findings – The chapter shows that the 26 August 2011 flood disaster in Ibadan metropolis caused monumental destructions in the city. The continuous construction on flood plains, indiscriminate dumping of refuse, excessive rainfall and deforestation were identified as the main vulnerability factors. The chapter shows that there is no adequate framework for disaster risk management in the city.

Research limitations – About 250 affected households in 11 LGAs were interviewed for the study due to time and budget constraints. This figure is considered meagre considering the number of affected households by the flood disaster. However, the random selection of affected households and key government officials helped to address this limitation.

Originality/value of chapter – The simultaneous identification of impacts, vulnerability factors and disaster risk management framework in the city provides an opportunity for the development of a holistic and proactive disaster risk management strategy in Ibadan metropolis.

Nowadays, under climate change contexts, natural disasters are becoming stronger in intensity and probability. The impacts of natural disasters on people and the environment are also getting worse. The purpose of this study was conducted to provide a method of assessing disaster risks, in particular, floods for human life in Mid Central Vietnam.

The pre-disaster assessment method was used based on the analysis of hazard factors (Hazard-H), exposure to hazards (Exposure-E) and vulnerability (Vulnerability-V).

Flood disaster risks in the area are assessed and displayed on spatial maps. The districts in coastal plains of Quang Ngai and Thua Thien Hue provinces have the highest levels of risk. These assessments will play an important role in supporting flood prevention and mitigation in the region.

According to the authors, this is the first study assessing the flood risk in Vietnam on the pre-disaster perspective. The assessment provides a plain point of view on natural disaster impacts that supporting disaster prevention services.

Amidst the current economic climate, which places many constraints on expensive flood defence schemes, the policy makers tend to favour schemes that are sympathetic to the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and which promote empowering local communities based on their individual local contexts. Research has shown that although several initiatives are in place to create behavioural change among SMEs in undertaking adaptation approaches against flooding, they often tend to delay their responses by means of a “wait and see” attitude. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper argues that unless there are conscious efforts in the policy-making community to undertake explicit measures to engage with SMEs in a collaborative way, the uptake of adaptation measures will not be achieved as intended. With the use of the “honest broker” approach the paper provides a conceptual way forward of how a sense of collaboration can be instigated in an engagement process between the policy makers and SMEs, so that the scientific knowledge is translated in an appropriately rational way, which best meets the expectations of the SMEs.

The paper proposes a conceptual model for engaging SMEs that will potentially increase the uptake of flood adaptation measures by SMEs. This could be a useful model with which to kick start a collaborative engagement process that could escalate to wider participation in other areas to improve impact of policy initiatives.

The paper lays the conceptual foundation for a new theoretical base in the area, which will encourage more empirical investigations that will potentially enhance the practicality of some of the existing policies.

The purpose of this research is to investigate ethnic differences in perceptions of social responsibility, in relation to flooding, for householders, local businesses and policy makers.

The data were obtained via a questionnaire survey of three communities in Birmingham and one community in South East London, UK. A total of 481 responses were received and used in the statistical analysis. The interpretation of the findings was aided by cognitive mapping to synthesise the data transcripts from 174 responses to the open‐ended questions. Comparisons were made between communities in different locations and with different experience of flooding.

Ethnic differences consistently exist within the perceptions of householder and business groups within communities (in different locations) which have recent experience of flooding, but not in the policy maker group or in a community without recent flood experience. The finding also suggests three different levels of resilience and their association with different ethnic groups.

Future research should conduct further analysis with equal ethnic representation throughout each community group so that more ethnic groups can be investigated and compared. For a more comprehensive understanding, further investigation should be conducted across different communities in different countries with different environmental hazards.

The findings contribute to the understanding of the influence of demographic factors in disaster management field, and can provide useful knowledge for targeted and tailored strategies of communication of flood information.

The research represents the first attempt to investigate ethnic differences in perceptions of social responsibility of householders, small businesses and policy makers for the community resilience to flooding.

This study aims to investigate the level of preparedness among property owners who had experienced flood damage to their properties in two cities in England following the summer floods of 2007. Flooding can have a variety of impacts on residential properties and businesses that may be unprepared and therefore vulnerable to both direct and indirect effects. Research suggests that the focus in analysis of damage to flood plain population (residential and commercial) tends to be on the direct tangible impacts, limiting their ability to recognize the true costs of flooding, thereby leading to unpreparedness to future flooding. Greater understanding of the level of preparedness against different types of flood impacts is likely to contribute towards increased knowledge of the likely resilience of residential and commercial property occupiers.

Primary data obtained through self-administered postal questionnaire survey of floodplain residential and commercial residents provide the basis for the research analysis and findings. The rationale behind choosing the locations for the research was based on the need to investigate areas where a sizeable number of residential and commercial properties were affected during the 2007 event, in this case, Sheffield and Wakefield in the northern part of England were chosen. The data collected were subjected to descriptive statistical analysis.

The result of the analysis revealed that non-structural measures have been implemented by more people when compared to other measures, which can be linked to the fact that non-structural measures, in most, cases do not have financial implication to the property owners. The uptake of the other measures (resistance and resilience) is very low. It can be concluded from the findings that the level of implementation of measures to reduce damage from potential future flooding among the flood plain residents is relatively low and mainly focussed towards reducing the direct effects of flooding.

The study argues that increased resilience can be sustainable only by developing integrated attitude towards risk reduction not only by enhancing coping strategy by reducing direct impacts of flooding but also equally focussing on indirect effects.

There have been previous studies towards investigating the impacts of flooding on residential and commercial property owners as a separate entity. It is believed that this is the first time in which both residential and commercial properties will be investigated together as one body of research.

The Foresight Future Flooding (FFF) project researched flood risk in the UK to the year 2100 for central government, using scenarios and a national risk assessment model backed by qualitative analysis from panels of some 45 senior scientists. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of the project, both nationally and internationally.

This paper assesses the impact of the FFF project, both nationally and internationally, using web searches, document analysis, and a questionnaire survey of key actors in the flood risk management policy field.

It was found that the penetration of the project into professionals' consciousness was high in relation to other comparable projects and publications, and its impact on policy – both immediately and continuing – was profound. The FFF initiative did not create policy change, however, but facilitated its legitimation, adding impetus to what was already there, as one element of a part‐catalytic and part‐incremental process of policy evolution.

Special circumstances, internal and external to the project, mean that this cannot be a simple model for matching research to policymakers' needs in the future.

Important lessons may be learnt from this project about both the methods of forward‐looking foresight‐type research, and the way that its results are disseminated to its target audiences.

This is an innovative attempt to assess the impact of a new type of foresight project.

Climate change is predicted to increase the vulnerability of urban populations to flood hazards. Against this backdrop, flood risk adaptation has become pertinent. However, in Ghana, current flood risk management practice is fostered by a reactive culture. There is limited research on how communities and government agencies are engaging with flood risk adaptation in improving resilience. Therefore, this paper aims to analyse the culture of communities and agencies through the cultural theory of risk (CTR), towards understanding the flood risk adaptation in Accra, Ghana. Culture is deciphered using the beliefs held by residents and public agency officials.

A qualitative methodology, underpinned by the constructivist paradigm, was adopted to understand factors that influence flood risk adaptation in informal settlements. Data was gathered using household and institutional interviews in Glefe, Accra, Ghana.

The results show that both disaster risk management institutions and community members are deeply concerned about current and future flood risk. However, their cultural beliefs concerning flood risk and adaptation are contradictory, broadly framed by fatalist, individualist and hierarchist beliefs. The contradictory emergent beliefs contribute to a clash of expectations and create uncertainty about how to respond to flood risk, impacting the implementation of required adaptation measures. Developing a collaborative flood risk management framework and a shared understanding of adaptation approaches may be a better alternative.

This paper advances understanding of how culture influences flood risk adaptation in developing country context.

Quantitative and spatial-explicit flood risk information is of great importance for strengthening climate change adaptation and flood resilience. Shanghai is a coastal megacity at large estuary delta with rising flood risks. This study aims to quantify the overall economic-societal risks of storm flooding and their spatial patterns in Shanghai.

Based on multiple storm flood scenarios at different return periods, as well as fine-scale data sets including gridded GDP, gridded population and vector land-use, a probabilistic risk model incorporating geographic information system is used to assess the economic-societal risks of flooding and their spatial distributions.

Our results show that, from 1/200 to 1/5,000-year floods, the exposed assets will increase from USD 85.4bn to USD 657.6bn, and the direct economic losses will increase from USD 3.06bn to USD 52bn. The expected annual damage (EAD) of assets is around USD 84.36m. Hotpots of EAD are mainly distributed in the city center, the depressions along the upper Huangpu River in the southwest, the north coast of Hangzhou Bay, and the confluence of the Huangpu River and Yangtze River in the northeast. From 1/200 to 1/5,000-year floods, the exposed population will rise from 280 thousand to 2,420 thousand, and the estimated casualties will rise from 299 to 1,045. The expected annual casualties (EAC) are around 2.28. Hotspots of casualties are generally consistent with those of EAD.

In contrast to previous studies that focus on a single flood scenario or a particular type of flood exposure/risk in Shanghai, the findings contribute to an understanding of overall flood risks and their spatial patterns, which have significant implications for cost-benefit analysis of flood resilience strategies.