Spatial-Temporal Dynamics of Flood Resilience

Descripción del proyecto

Investigar la resiliencia humana a las inundaciones

Los estudios existentes sobre las relaciones entre las inundaciones y la sociedad se centran en el riesgo, la exposición, la vulnerabilidad, los daños y las necesidades de adaptación. Sin embargo, se presta poca atención a las diferentes sociedades humanas que han sobrevivido y se han desarrollado en zonas propensas a las inundaciones. El equipo del proyecto STORIES, financiado por el Consejo Europeo de Investigación, creará un marco teórico de las múltiples características espaciotemporales de la resiliencia frente a las inundaciones en la región de la Ruta del Té y los Caballos, en la parte sudoriental de la meseta tibetana. La zona es un laboratorio natural ideal para este tema debido a su larga y singular historia documentada, con una amplia experiencia en cuanto a riesgos. En el proyecto se investigarán y modelizarán las diferencias espaciales (hogar, comunidad, ciudad y región) con respecto a las perspectivas gubernamentales, tecnológicas, sociales y culturales de la resiliencia a las inundaciones. Los hallazgos se trasladarán al delta del Mekong y otros lugares.

Objetivo

Existing studies on flood-society relations overwhelmingly concentrate on risk, exposure, vulnerability, damage, loss, and adaptation needs, most of which adopt a negative perspective. The fact that various human societies have well survived and continuously developed in flood prone areas (e.g. coasts, river deltas, flood plains, hilly valleys) is far less studied. Closing this research gap requires a deeper historical perspective to investigate the resilience of human society to floods, i.e. flood resilience and its changes. The Tea-Horse Road (THR) area, a flood hotspot across the mountainous Southeast Tibetan Plateau, is an ideal natural laboratory to study the spatial-temporal dynamics of flood resilience due to its long and uniquely documented history with extensive hazard experiences. STORIES will set up a theoretical framework on the multi-spatial-temporal features of flood resilience at the THR region, which covers the spatial differences (household, community, city and region) over the past 600 years regarding the governance, technology, society, and culture perspectives of flood resilience. A set of quantitative proxy data, historical archives, literature re-analysis, statistical data, observation data and field survey data will be integrated into both the empirical study in the case areas and the agent-based modelling across the cases. Specifically, STORIES aims to 1) establish a theoretical understanding of the spatial-temporal scales of flood resilience; 2) investigate the spatial patterns and temporal evolution of flood resilience at the THR cases; 3) model the spatial-temporal dynamics of flood resilience using agent-based models; 4) transfer and generalize the research findings of the THR cases to the Mekong River Delta and beyond. By doing so, STORIES will present pioneering work to shape the emerging research field of flood resilience, offering new and multi-dimensional knowledge on the dynamic nature of flood-society relations.