Abstract (eng)
With heavy urbanization and climate change, cities are expected to become increasingly vulnerable to floods. Flood resilience emerged as a compelling theoretical framework to assess the capacity of an urban area to cope with (short term) and adapt to (long term) flood episodes.
By comparing two European cities that recently experienced flooding (in 2011 for Copenhagen and 2015 for Nice), this research aims to provide a better understanding of the effects of learning and collaboration in forging and operationalizing flood resilience, by paying special attention to how actors coordinate and whether strategic plans encourage collaborative principles to tackle flooding. Hence, the leading question of this thesis is: how do learning and collaborative practices contribute to the operationalization of flood resilience in urban planning and climate adaptation plans in Nice and Copenhagen?
Content analysis of climate adaptation, flood risk management, and urban planning plans coupled with expert interviews were conducted to gain a more nuanced view of the barriers to operationalizing flood resilience. The analysis of the collected data demonstrated that a holistic approach to flood risk management strategies is required, whereby lessons learned from experience and exploration learning in order to adapt to climate change do prove very useful, not to say essential. Yet, poor collaboration amongst different levels of government, and the precipitated construction of new urban development may impede long-term changes.