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Flood Risk - The Holistic Perspective (Hardcover)
Loot Price: R3,706
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Flood Risk - The Holistic Perspective (Hardcover)
Series: Urban Hydroinformatics
Expected to ship within 9 - 15 working days
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According to the International Disaster Database (EM-DAT), over the
last seventy years, floods have shown the fastest rate of increase
relative to any other type of disasters. Devastation due to these
events occurs almost daily. Even though our technological
capabilities for dealing with floods have advanced rapidly over the
same period, and while global economic growth per capita has
doubled, flood events have become ever more disastrous. Does this
mean that our technological developments have advanced
independently from the social and wider ecological needs? Flood
Risk: The Holistic Perspective is a direct response to this
question and it argues that this paradoxical situation is a result
from our narrow and fragmented perception of reality which has been
characteristic of our academic disciplines and government agencies.
It suggests that the way forward can be found only if we broaden
our view and learn how the natural or social phenomena can provoke
a response in a society, or a social group, which in turn can
trigger the technical developments, and so on, again and again, in
what has the potential to become a network of interactions and
relationships through positive feedback (or coevolving) cycles. The
holistic perspective however may raise the following question: If
everything is connected to everything else, how can we ever hope to
understand anything? Our response draws from the understandings
brought by complexity theory where individual elements coevolve
together both in development and application. This recognition
opens a new analysis which goes beyond the direct objects or actors
of concern (risk forecasting, early warning, land-use planning
technology and systems for example), and into the relationships
between them. The book suggests that our initial response to this
and many other challenges is to change our perception from a
disciplinary and defensive one to a progressive (or transcendental)
and transdiciplinary, i.e., the one that turns challenges into the
possibilities that can re-shape our future. The book is structured
in eight chapters. Chapter 1 provides exposure to the complexity of
flood-related issues and illustrates diversity of multiple points
of view. Chapter 2 elaborates on the history of holistic thinking
with connection to the flood resilience process. Chapter 3
discusses the holistic risk governance approach which progresses
beyond the integrated urban flood management. Chapter 4 describes
the Green Cities Initiative, an initiative which is essentially
holistic in its nature as it aims to improve transport, energy
efficiency, industrial metabolism including water supply and
distribution as well as drainage and sewerage services through the
holistic lens of interactions between different sectors. Chapter 5
discusses various risk assessment practices and it concludes that
any practice that omits social, ethical and wider ecological points
of view will be severely restricted in its scope and its reach.
Chapter 6 describes the root causes of floods in the Pasig-Marikina
River Basin in Metro Manila, Philippines. Chapter 7 reflects upon
the key issues and challenges from 2011 Thailand floods. Finally,
Chapter 8 presents some of the key aspects concerning urban
stormwater management practice in Beijing, China.
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