Flood Resilience

The multi-year partnership includes the Zurich Foundation and Zurich Insurance, which also fund the partnership, as well as the humanitarian, development and research NGOs Practical Action, the International Federation of the Red Cross (IFRC), Concern, Mercy Corps, Plan International and ISET-International, as well as IIASA and the London School of Economics (LSE) as research partners.

In its first phase (2013-2017), the Flood Resilience Alliance has focused on shifting efforts from the traditional focus on post-event recovery to pre-event flood risk reducing and resilience-building actions. More than 110 communities with over 225,000 direct beneficiaries in nine countries have benefited from alliance projects, supported by strong scientific evidence on the value of pre-event action from IIASA and other research partners. Yet, mounting climate-related risks continue to require bold action to build resilience across vulnerable communities.

To further boost community resilience and reduce flood risk around the globe, the Flood Resilience Alliance has been prolonged into a second five-year phase (until 2023). Building on the experiences and achievements from the first phase, the partners continue to work together to unlock new and innovative pathways and finance for boosting community resilience in more than 15 countries through community-level interventions and cutting-edge research. Beyond that, the Alliance is a regular participant to international policy debates, sharing insights from its work in view of scaling up efforts to reduce flood risk across the globe.

IIASA focus

As a key research partner in the Flood Resilience Alliance IIASA applies hard and soft systems science to inform the development of community-based flood resilience strategies and break ground towards transformational adaptation to prevent climate-related disasters. IIASA’s key research contributions in the second phase focuses on identifying innovative ways to substantially increase investments into transformational risk reducing and resilience-building actions before flood strikes, including through work in support of the Flood Resilience Measurement for Communities (FRMC) tool and the Flood Resilience Dashboard. IIASA is also contributing cutting-edge research on decision-making for flood risk reduction and resilience, on transformational adaptation and on climate finance in the context of Loss and Damage. In addition, IIASA is strongly engaged in the advocacy work of the Flood Resilience Alliance, informing international and national debates on boosting resilience in the context of mounting climate-related risks. All Alliance work, including IIASA’s research, can be accessed on the Flood Resilience Portal.

Last edited: 28 August 2019