FLOODLABEL: A smart tool for governance towards flood-resilient cities

Flooding is among the most expensive natural disasters in Europe. The damage of the 2013 river floods in Central Europe is € 12.900 million; the spring 2016 torrential rain events in Europe caused € 5.400 million damage. Extreme hydro-meteorological events such as river floods and flash floods will likely increase in the future due to climate change (IPCC 2014). This impacts the flood-resilience of cities. However, traditional flood protection methods provided by governments are no longer neither technically able nor economically feasible to deal with this. To substantially reduce the impact of floods on cities, besides governmental measures also individual homeowners need to make adaptations to their homes Those adaptation measures exist, but for the moment homeowners insufficiently implement them, due to their lack of risk awareness, knowledge on measures and triggers to take action. To address these issues, this project designs, tests and implements a smart governance tool – the FLOODLABEL – in urban living labs in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Austria. This prototype tool informs homeowners on their individual flood risks, assists experts in deciding upon contextualized measures for flood reduction and prevention and supports local governments in their policies on the area-based accumulated effects of individual flood protection measures.