In England, flooding in recent years has had a detrimental effect on the economy, the environment and the health and wellbeing of people. Climate change research suggests that the occurrence and consequences of flooding may worsen in the future. Therefore, effective flood risk management (FRM) is crucial. Traditionally, mainly structural measures, such as barriers and embankments, were taken to prevent flooding. In recent times, the emphasis has shifted to managing the risk of flooding by using non-structural methods as well, such as spatial planning. Simultaneously, there has been a shift from government to governance. Due to privatisation, agentification and decentralisation, decision making increasingly takes place in local governance networks. Actors with differing interests and responsibilities interact and negotiate in order to influence FRM, such as local authorities, the Environment Agency (EA), which has national responsibility for FRM, and developers. This PhD research explores the nature of network governance in FRM in England. The research focuses on local planning processes to examine the development and functioning of governance networks, in order to identify key factors that influence FRM. To achieve this, a multiple case study approach was applied, comprising two cases of local planning processes. The first case is a major mixed development in the North-East of England that has issues with river and surface water flooding, whilst the second case is a major redevelopment of a cricket ground in the South-East that is at significant risk of river flooding. The findings show that in both cases governance networks were formed to make decisions on FRM. In the first case, the actors cooperated and were able to implement a sustainable method of FRM. In the second case, the actors were unable to agree and the decision was referred to central government, which granted permission for development against the EA’s advice. One key factor influencing FRM was the actors’ ability to align interests, in particular the developers, the local authority and the EA, causing either conflict or cooperation in the governance network. The individual interests were derived from various factors, such as legislation, financial benefits and personal preference. The actors then used their agency to reach collaborative or individual objectives by utilising knowledge and structures to their advantage. Therefore, the nature of network governance influences the functioning of these networks, which in turn impacts on the way flood risk is managed.

Assessing the risks of flooding, and the effectiveness of mitigation strategies, is an important part of any river management strategy. This is improved greatly by the accurate simulation of surface hydraulics, and moving to two-dimensional simulations that can capture the dynamics of surface processes has clear advantages. Only with the increased availability of accurate topographic data, has this become practical for many cases. In chapter two the methodologies of river flood modeling are described. A number of concerns peculiar to that field are discussed. These include roughness parameterisation and heterogeneity of features on the domain. Finite Volume (FV) methods can simulate shallow water flows effciently. Their shock-capturing ability makes them especially useful for flash-flood events. A particular FV package AMAZON-CC is adapted, which uses an approximate twoshock Riemann solver over a regular orthogonal grid. The Cartesian cut-cell method allows solid regions to be included as local modifcations to individual cells. Wetting and drying causes particular difficulties with FV methods. The Volume to Free-Surface Relationship (VFSR) method provides a framework in which a variety of mitigation strategies can be adopted. A modifed form of this was used, adapted to the rectangular grid with a piecewise level interpretation of topography. Several strategies are tested, and the most successful adopted thereafter. The Cartesian cut-cell method was extended to include large scale but complex features as vector, or polygon data-sets. The approach here concentrates on the fluxes across boundaries, to represent linear features such as hedgerows and fences. Preliminary results are presented and analysed and compared to classical results for headloss from interaction with structures. Test cases based on physical expreriments and real-life events are successfully reproduced. These demonstrate the suitability of AMAZON as a tool to model inland flooding.

Flood governance and policy in Europe are changing: the role of the state and individual responsibility for risk management are now key contemporary issues in flood policy. The new policy agenda has been implemented to enhance the responsibilities of local authorities in flood risk management and reduce the controlling role of central national governments. The new strategies place the lead responsibility on local organisations to determine local strategies to manage local risks. This thesis examines the new role of these local authorities and organisations in flood risk management as well as how the nature of partnerships are established and operate, focusing especially on the main barriers and challenges. In principle, local authorities should be able to lead partnerships with local stakeholders to ensure effective local flood risk management. However, with current pressures on local authorities to reduce spending and a parallel reduction in the central state’s resources, partnership has been seen as a possibility to both increase the value of budgets available. The central aspects of this thesis are to investigate and to explore the influence of new scales on the interaction and performance of the different actors and their relationships; particularly with regard to power, processes and scaled networks. The research was carried out through a series of semi-structured interviews with both regional and local stakeholders in Austria and England. It demonstrates not only the importance of network connections between actors at the same scale, but refers also to the networks between actors and stakeholders at different scales, especially between local and national level. Local engagement strongly depends on social capacities, such as knowledge, motivation/self-interest, economics, networks, organisation and procedural capacity.

The number of flood related disasters is predicted to increase with the changing climate. How cities mitigate and prepare for the potential flooding influences the scope and extent of damage, and diminishes the risk of an event turning into a disaster. Preparation or preparedness is, therefore, seen as an important component to flood resilience in cities. This research qualitatively explored the social phenomenon of why some prepare and others do not through the application of Protection Motivation Theory (PMT) in two flood-vulnerable areas of the cities of Hamburg and Dhaka: Wilhelmsburg and Badda (respectively). This exploration utilised semi-structured interviews to collect information on local communities’ flood risk perceptions and flood preparedness. The findings showed that the motivation that the informants had was highly influenced by the amount of prior experience they had had with floods. Where this was high, informants demonstrated a protection motivation that was culturally innate. Theoretical findings provided in depth detail of the components of PMT, and its applicability within flood risk contexts. Although, still further exploration of PMT as an assessment tool of preparedness behaviour in urban-flood-vulnerable communities is recommended, this study has found that it does explain the differences in flood preparedness behaviours in urban communities. In addition its links with both the social system and individual cognitive processes provides insight into the different factors and reasons that influence the preparedness behaviour of urban communities.

Large-scale disasters are constantly occurring around the world, and in many cases evacuation of regions of city is needed. ‘Operational Research/Management Science’ (OR/MS) has been widely used in emergency planning for over five decades. Warning dissemination, evacuee transportation and shelter management are three ‘Evacuation Support Functions’ (ESF) generic to many hazards. This thesis has adopted a case study approach to illustrate the importance of integrated approach of evacuation planning and particularly the role of OR/MS models. In the warning dissemination phase, uncertainty in the household’s behaviour as ‘warning informants’ has been investigated along with uncertainties in the warning system. An agentbased model (ABM) was developed for ESF-1 with households as agents and ‘warning informants’ behaviour as the agent behaviour. The model was used to study warning dissemination effectiveness under various conditions of the official channel. In the transportation phase, uncertainties in the household’s behaviour such as departure time (a function of ESF-1), means of transport and destination have been. Households could evacuate as pedestrians, using car or evacuation buses. An ABM was developed to study the evacuation performance (measured in evacuation travel time). In this thesis, a holistic approach for planning the public evacuation shelters called ‘Shelter Information Management System’ (SIMS) has been developed. A generic allocation framework of was developed to available shelter capacity to the shelter demand by considering the evacuation travel time. This was formulated using integer programming. In the sheltering phase, the uncertainty in household shelter choices (either nearest/allocated/convenient) has been studied for its impact on allocation policies using sensitivity analyses. Using analyses from the models and detailed examination of household states from ‘warning to safety’, it was found that the three ESFs though sequential in time, however have lot of interdependencies from the perspective of evacuation planning. This thesis has illustrated an OR/MS based integrated approach including and beyond single ESF preparedness. The developed approach will help in understanding the inter-linkages of the three evacuation phases and preparing a multi-agency-based evacuation planning evacuation.

This study investigates the dialectical relationships between state-centred interventions and community-based actions in reducing disaster risks by focusing on everyday practices of the informal settlers living in ‘danger areas’. Past research has reduced the interactions between state and community by focusing on tensions between the two as top-down/bottom-up or knowledge/action. This research attempts to illustrate community-based disaster risk reduction as a process itself in which multiple and contingent paths emerge. To this aim, adopting Lefebvre’s production of space, this research elaborates on the concept of ‘space of risk’, which is distinguished from the term ‘danger areas’. Specifically, the term ‘danger areas’ is defined exclusively by law and is based on scientific knowledge and policy orientation; however, local communities directly involved in a series of disasters are relatively excluded in the construction of meanings. If an urban area is declared a ‘danger area’, the state has a legal basis to evict informal settlers living in that area. Those who determine a danger area have the power to dictate who has access to urban lands. Hence, in conceptualizing ‘space of risk’ as an analytical tool, this thesis highlights the roles of informal settlers in producing this space and, potentially, reproducing existing social relationships. This framework is used to address whether the state potentially depoliticizes community-based actions, how community involvement in disaster risk reduction can bring changes to the state mode of production, and under which conditions community-based actions can obtain political dimension. Empirical narratives are grounded in the city of Metro Manila, the Philippines. Guided by a qualitative case study methodology, fieldwork was conducted in three sites of low-income communities, facing a range of disaster risks. Whilst the government-led relocation plan increases the vulnerability of people and, as a result, depoliticizes community-based actions, the informal settlers living in ‘danger areas’ self-organize, initiate, and participate in disaster risk reduction activities. However, within a community that is disaggregated are sub-communities that develop and pursue their own agendas; especially, the most active participants of disaster risk reduction who negotiate with the governments for basic services or access to land ownership. Thus, when acknowledging different agendas, aspirations, and needs of each group, community-based actions can regain their political dimension.

Following various disasters across the world, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers issued a comprehensive report on resilience and disaster management [15]. The report called for the development of an integrating framework for resilience that incorporates the societal dimension as an integral part of engineering. This research attempts to provide a philosophical and theoretical framework to support the solution to this grand challenge by proposing the theory of Mindfulness Engineering. Mindfulness Engineering puts people at the centre of the solution. It asserts that physical (e.g. the built environment) and social (e.g. political, economic and legal) infrastructure systems are created to meet the needs and wants of people and communities. These infrastructure systems need to be in harmony with the environmental and ecological systems within which they exist, with which they interact, and from which they draw energies and resources. Such harmony will in turn promote harmony of individual's and communities' behaviours and interactions with the environmental and ecological systems. Mindfulness Engineering attempts to explain and frame the complexity and interdependency between infrastructures, ecosystems and societies. It puts its emphasis on the role of humans, and their adaptation styles and methods, in shaping the overall system's resilient properties and capabilities, such as thriving in the face of adversity. Mindfulness Engineering provides an interdisciplinary unit of analysis of resilience, called the Resilient Agent (RA), which spans across various domains and disciplines and links the concept of resilience to the future of urbanisation. With the increasing rate of urbanisation across the world [26], and enhanced utilisation of the internet and data, the building of Resilient Living Spaces (RLS) and Resilient Interfaces (RJ) must be an integral part of the future of engineering. Mindfulness Engineering defines mindfulness as being in the present moment and being conscious of everything from a variety of perspectives (including history and future) across the environmental, ecological, social and technological domains, when creating new concepts and distinctions in the process of satisfying human needs and wants. It explicitly seeks to avoid automatic, "mindless" thought processes. In other words, it emphasises clear, purposeful, cognitive functioning and learning. Mindfulness Engineering emphasises the role of biology in the ability of societies to interpret and effect change. It sees the surrounding environment as a vehicle for purposeful neurobiological rewiring of the cognitive functions and resulting behaviours of social agents living in a volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA) world. By emphasising the centrality of neurobiological and cognitive development, Mindfulness Engineering significantly elaborates and extends 'systems thinking'.

Increasing global volcanic risk is driven by rising exposure and vulnerability. This study develops population-focussed, evidence-based, globally-applicable indices for assessment of volcanic hazard and exposure, then explores the potential for combining them with vulnerability metrics (e.g. the WorldRisklndex vulnerability index) to measure volcanic threat. Outputs may be used to inform hazard and risk management strategies. The hazard index is based on three strands of investigation: analysis of a newly-compiled database of global volcanic fatalities; critique of existing volcanic hazard indices; exploration of the global eruption catalogue. These investigations identify the major determinants of loss of life, shortcomings of existing indices, and issues such as under recording of eruptions and concurrence of hazards that should be controlled for, respectively. The fatalities analysis also highlights the dominance of a few large disasters and a handful of regions on the global fatalities distribution. 74% of fatalities result from just 13 (of 533) fatal incidents, though 55% of fatal incidents have caused ten or fewer fatalities. The findings are used to develop a hazard index with indicator scores based on lethality: Hazard index score = [(modal VEI + pyroclastic flow score + mudflow score + lava flow score) x frequency status score] + maximum recorded VEI Sufficient data exist to apply this method to and calculate hazard scores for 319 'verified' volcanoes. For the remaining 1,232 'unverified' volcanoes, hazard scores are calculated using 'verified' volcanoes of similar morphology as proxies. A Population Exposure Index (PEI) is proposed, which uses weighted population counts to measure the exposed population within 100 km of volcanoes. Weights reflect differences in proximity (based on incidence of fatalities) and population density (based on spatial distribution). Exploration of the creation of a threat measure that combines the hazard index and PEl with the WorldRisklndex vulnerability index highlights a number of complex issues. This is a non-trivial undertaking with many further avenues to be explored.

Floods are the most common natural disasters in Asia, and the urbanised mega-deltas in the region are experiencing increased incidence of flooding. Flood risk has increased due to rapid urban growth which makes people more vulnerable and threatens economic assets, and due to climatic extremes, such as frequent and intense typhoons, rainstorms and global sea-level rise. This study addresses the Pearl River Delta (PRO), where 120 million people will live by 2050, and in particular the megacities of Hong Kong and Shenzhen, important economic hubs of East Asia, which are low-lying, densely populated and increasingly vulnerable to flooding. The research has focussed on case studies of Tai 0 and the Shen- zhen River catchment to address both coastal and riverine flooding. Drawing on best practice and lessons from flood risk management internationally, a theoretical sustainable flood risk appraisal (SF RA) framework was developed to enable bench marking of flood management practices, constraints and barriers against sustainability objectives for the two study sites, and for the wider PRO region. A textural analysis approach is employed in order to analysis data from semi-structure interviews, and secondary source from grey literature. The study found good practice in the area, including that authorities initiated more ecological friendly soft engineering approaches in the current Shenzhen River Regulation project, and flood contingency planning and a special tidal warning system are operational in Tai 0 after two coastal floods. However, current practices are rather ad-hoc, and tend to respond to events without sufficient prior strategic and long term planning strategies. They also suffer from a lack of attention to socio-economic risks, flood risk information is not publicly accessible so limiting flood awareness and preparation, and access to flood insurance is poor. Traditional hard-engineering measures still dominate. Significant constraints on sustainable flood risk management (SFRM) practice also include poorly defined Institutional responsibilities with respect to flood risk management (FRM) and climate change adaptation, and little opportunity for public participation in flood risk management.

As the recent floods in the UK have shown, most householders in at-risk areas are not prepared for floods. In fact, even amongst those who know they are at risk, less than 10% have taken any practical steps to prepare for flooding. This research attempts to explain that phenomenon by examining the effects of the rhetorical strategies that lay-people employ to help them cope with household flood risk. Looking at at-risk householders who have been flooded, as well as at those who have not, it combines close textual analysis of spoken interviews with secondary analysis of survey data to identify the rationalities that structure lay-people's talk and behaviour on the issue of flood risk. The low take-up of mitigation measures, it concludes, can be explained by the fact that householders prioritise the reduction of anxiety over the reduction of the risk of physical harm. Anxiety is familiar, predictable and causes immediate harm; flooding is unfamiliar to most residents, is unpredictable and is represented as difficult to control. As a result, householders eschew mitigation measures if they are uncertain of their efficacy and if they feel they will make them more anxious. Instead, they choose to protect a representation of life that enables them to feel secure. If state agencies are to influence householder responses to flood risk, it is suggested, they need to understand this rationale and to work with it. In order to increase the take-up of mitigation measures they should minimise the anxiety associated with taking mitigation measures - avoiding messages that provoke fear responses, making flood risk mitigation seem a normal part of home security and providing householders with individually tailored advice so that they feel less anxious about making a mistake when they choose which measures to implement.