Mediterranean city and flood: a systemic approach to risk mitigation

Urban areas are suffering increasing vulnerability to flooding due to the lack of a cultural, scientific and operative framework to mitigate risks connected to these events. Indeed, prevention and management of such hazards have always been carried out with defensive actions aimed at realizing a technology-based control over natural dynamics through traditional engineering solutions, disregarding the essential role of other connected disciplines. Urban flood risk mitigation, instead, is a complex issue that involves different actors and several interrelated intervention scales, from catchment scale down to building scale. Moreover, uncertainties connected to future climate, social and economic conditions as well as to modification of urban environment must be considered. The development of an integrated cross-scale approach referred to different spatial and temporal scales is needed in order to understand flood events and to develop operative measure especially in Mediterranean compact cities, which are an important part of the European urban heritage. The operative framework described in this paper is part of the scientific research project USAFE (DICEA department, Sapienza University of Rome) which aims at improving flood resilience in existing Mediterranean compact cities integrating architectural, hydro-geology and hydrology professionals in order to find proper site-specific solutions. It enables to consider the connections among the different spatial scales and the deep uncertainties related to future scenarios. Therefore, it allows supporting decision makers in the definition of effective adaptive strategies for mitigating flood risk.