Individual measures for adaptive cities

Abstract

Resilient cities play an increasingly important role in scientific research as well as practice due to changing global environmental conditions such as climate change. In the past, floods caused by rivers or extreme rainfall often demonstrated their potential to cause extensive damage, as evidenced by various recent events. Nonetheless, the transformation of a theoretical concept into a practical application remains a major challenge, as does the question of scale and temporal aspects, areas in which further study and research is needed. This chapter fills this lacuna by offering examples for possible individual measures towards a resilient (re)construction of so called "functional units" placed at waterfronts. This will be undertaken by considering strategies for flood-risk management according to the EU Floods Directive (2007/60/EC) with a special focus on prevention, protection, mitigation, and precaution, as well as recovery measures and strategies.