Assessment of Flood Losses with Household Responses: Agent-Based Simulation in an Urban Catchment Area

Densely populated coastal urban areas are often exposed to multiple hazards, in particular floods and storms. Flood defenses and other engineering measures contribute to the mitigation of flood hazards, but a holistic approach to flood risk management should consider other interventions from the human side, including warning information, adaptive behavior, people/property evacuation, and the multilateral relief in local communities. There are few simulation approaches to consider these factors, and these typically focus on collective human actions. This paper presents an agent-based model that simulates flood response preferences and actions taken within individual households to reduce flood losses. The model implements a human response framework in w hich agents assess different flood scenarios according to warning information and decide whether and how much they invest in response measures to reduce potential inun- dation damages. A case study has been carried out in the Ng Tung River basin, an urbanized watershed in northern Hong Kong. Adopting a digital elevation model (DEM) as the modeling environment and a building map of household locations in the case area, the model considers the characteristics of households and the flood response behavior of their occupants. We found that property value, warning information, and storm conditions all influence household losses, with downstream and high density areas being particularly vulnerable. Results further indicate (i) that a flood warning system, which provides timely, accurate, and broad coverage rainstorm warning, can reduce flood losses by 30–40%; and (ii) to reduce losses, it is more effective and cheaper to invest early in response measures than late actions. This dynamic agent-based modeling approach is an innovative attempt to quantify and model the role of human responses in flood loss assessments. The model is demonstrated being useful for analyzing household scale flood losses and responses and it has the potential to contribute to flood emergency planning resource allocation in pluvial flood incidents

A research agenda for open energy science: Opportunities and perspectives of the F1000Research Energy Gateway [version 1; peer review: not peer reviewed]

Energy enables the functioning of modern society. However, humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels since the industrial revolution has contributed to many societal problems including climate change, environmental degradation and pollution, and the transition to a renewable and carbon-free energy system is one of the grand challenges for the 21st century. The aim of this editorial is to outline the importance of a fast and transparent sharing of energy research and discuss key themes of the Energy Gateway of F1000Research

Renewable, ethical? Assessing the energy justice potential of renewable electricity

Energy justice is increasingly being used as a framework to conceptualize the impacts of energy decision making in more holistic ways and to consider the social implications in terms of existing ethical values. Similarly, renewable energy technologies are increasingly being promoted for their environmental and social benefits. However, little work has been done to systematically examine the extent to which, in what ways and in what contexts, renewable energy technologies can contribute to achieving energy justice. This paper assesses the potential of renewable electricity technologies to address energy justice in various global contexts via a systematic review of existing studies analyzed in terms of the principles and dimensions of energy justice. Based on publications including peer reviewed academic literature, books, and in some cases reports by government or international organizations, we assess renewable electricity technologies in both grid integrated and off-grid use contexts. We conduct our investigation through the rubric of the affirmative and prohibitive principles of energy justice and in terms of its temporal, geographic, socio-political, economic, and technological dimensions. Renewable electricity technology development has and continue to have different impacts in different social contexts, and by considering the different impacts explicitly across global contexts, including differences between rural and urban contexts, this paper contributes to identifying and understanding how, in what ways, and in what particular conditions and circumstances renewable electricity technologies may correspond with or work to promote energy justice