Applying the Urban Systems Abstraction Hierarchy as a Tool for Flood Resilience

Climate change will mean cities are exposed to more frequent short-term shocks such as floods. City-scale resilience is achieved by understanding how these interact with longer-term stressors (e.g., social inequality). The Urban Systems Abstraction Hierarchy (USAH) has been developed for this purpose. In paper, Glasgow (UK) used a case study application, demonstrate theory can be operationalized through the application of USAH. Results USAH quantify interdependencies between tangible physical entities in city and intangible outcomes that monitor stressors, specifically response 1:200-year fluvial flood return period Glasgow. Resilience concepts multifunctionality, redundancy diversity applied interpret results their implications findings from show outcome Social equality equity influential Glasgow, whilst Reliable communications mobility an important resilience.