Adaptive Urban Design Resisting Torrential Rain

Abstract

Torrential rain is considered one of the climate disasters, which leaves behind damages in human life and the built environment. It is considered one of the floods causes that is hard to control or deal with within urbanization growth. The present work aims at collecting used protection strategies and analyzing them. This analysis will help architects and urban designers in selecting the proper strategy for the vulnerable area. Analytical methods are used. The current study is divided into three main sections. Section one covers aspects of torrential rain flooding such as the behavior, water directions, hazards on human and built environment, and risk assessments. The following section covers all protection strategies including the two types; the adaptation (soft solutions), and the resistance (hard solutions). Moreover, these protection strategies are analyzed based on their considerations of usage, and applications on the field. Section three covers two cities under risk of torrential rain with details of flood types they face, risk assessment, and adaptive strategies. From this analysis, three steps are concluded to assess the vulnerable area, starting with determining the flood types to design decision. In addition, adaptive protection strategies are classified into four categories based on their applications. Types of flood for each strategy are determined based on considerations of usage and flood type's specifications. Recommendations for making cities more adaptive to torrential rain hazards in the future are presented. This thesis provides a literature analysis for adaptive urban design strategies that make cities more resilience to torrential rain flooding. It presents an outline to all used protection strategies with their using considerations helping in recommending for making Egyptian vulnerable cities resilience to flooding risk.