Flood Management

Flood Management Designing the Risks (by Heike Langenbach)

Current and future flood defence requirements are a major challenge for cities not only in terms of technology and economics but also design and aesthetics, because protective dikes impact entire urban spaces

Flood is the most challenging phenomena between edges of city, river, lake and sea shore, this can easily be experienced due to ambiguous and chaos occurs when the two opposite elements clash and results into disaster, destruction of infrastructure and diseases. Although river or water in general is useful for commercial, transportation, and natural landscape in urban context, however mankind effort and search is to ensure the balance between the nature and technology in dealing with flood defence through designing approach.

The introduction of dikes and other technologies has shown failure on ecological and precaution measure to retain the relation between cities, social values and use of river, meanwhile flood management through design approach has to meet challenges of climatic change which has been documented since 19^thc due to increasingly rising of sea level, the danger of climatic conditions forced many cities to develop outline strategies and several alternative to attain the equilibrium of living without flood for cities located alongside rivers, lakes, seas and oceans.

For example “Hamburg needs to adapt and update its flood defence system to current high water marks. With the 2006 architecture Olympics, the city therefore sought new design ideas.”

Beside of new concept and ideas introduced by Zaha Hadid Architect on redesigning Hamburg’s prominent water front by piers, as an alternative for dikes which were used since 1962 after disastrous flood. This can sound great in the sense of aesthetic and prevention but on the other hand is totally an obstruction of natural relationship between land and water, also is a creation of new urban intervention to existing and new sculpture in coherent with urban fabric for sustainability of social activities.

Performance of designing in controlling and managing of flood is not limited by hydraulic engineering, barrier, dikes and piers by itself but can also be by introducing innovative concept using urbanism landscape such as introducing canal, green with specific tree which can function for prevention, aesthetic and purification of water, hence to overcome climatic conditions with friendly environment and achievement of ecological revitalisation as well.

For instead “The fluvial Parc del Besos in Barcelona provides huge public green areas for recreation, when it rains in the mountains, the meadows are under several metres water within hours. Keeping these flood events from becoming fatal traps are the new stairway and ramps, flashing warning panel and standby vehicles to point out imminent danger on time. After the floods the green areas are cleaned up and city life on the river resumes its course.”

Moreover the meeting of city and water at ambiguity space like river banks, it posing the question on how can these interfaces be defined appropriately?, Because the boundaries which creates these differences between the two places inline with the images and altitudes as well as divergent spheres of action, are both in needs of solutions to be a Venetian equilibrium, whereby the categories of various models dealing with flood defence system in designing can be assessed based on ecological manner.