The Role of Urban Planning and Landscape Tools Concerning Flash Flood Risk Reduction Within Arid and Semiarid Regions

Abstract

This chapter highlights some substantial questions inquired by researchers to comprehend the flood risks (FRs) that occur in their cities as follows: (1) What is the impact of flooding on urban areas? (2) what effect does urbanization have on FR? (3) What are the existing nonstructural and structural mitigation measures for urban flooding? and (4) What is the role of urban planning and landscape tools in flood risk reduction (FRR) for cities as well as their inhabitants? The main messages in this chapter could be summarized as follows: (1) Comprehension of both the sources and types of flooding is vital if proper FRR measures are to be determined, (2) Unplanned urban growth could seriously put lives and properties at high risk (3) Land use planning and regulation, and Sustainable infrastructure for stormwater management through landscape archi- tecture are fundamental measures for future FRR (4) The application of the urban planning approach for FRR in arid and semiarid regions has not yet received adequate attention and facing many challenges for its implementation, and finally (5) the combination of structural and nonstructural mitigation measures in spatial planning could be much more effective than using one type of measure alone.