Flood-resilient communities by 2035

Climate change increases the risk of flooding. While many municipalities have mapped their flood risks, the next step toward implementing measures and ensuring long-term operation and maintenance is challenging, especially in already built environments. At the same time, the primary responsibility for protecting properties lies with individual property owners, which is unknown to many citizens. This property area also represents about 70% of the land in urban areas. In order to achieve climate adaptation, collaboration between private and public stakeholders, a functional financing and responsibility model, and knowledge enhancement are required. This is particularly important since measures often cannot be solved on just the individual property.

The project aims to result in a systems and futures analysis to create flood-resilient communities by 2035. The project will first conduct an environmental and stakeholder analysis to identify obstacles, challenges, and relevant actors. Data will be gathered to develop proposals for business and financing models for joint measures in existing environments, explore interpretation gaps in current legislation, and promote knowledge enhancement in society. The project will include a case study in Uppsala, where multiple stakeholders are involved, and it will build upon ongoing and completed initiatives and projects. The project will bring together more stakeholders into a long-term actor group to jointly develop proposals for a follow-up project.