Paving the path to urban flood resilience by overcoming barriers: A novel grey structure analysis approach

Abstract

Urban flood resilience is essential to address increasingly flood risks through dynamic adjustments and proactive adaptations. However, the enhancement of urban flood resilience is challenged by various institutional, socioeconomic, technological and environmental barriers, particularly given the long-term, multi-stakeholder, and multi-resource nature of the problem. These barriers are interconnected and influence each other, requiring a systematic approach to understand them rather than addressing them piecemeal. This paper introduces a novel grey structure analysis approach based on grey possibility DEMATEL-ISM to identify the causal relationships and hierarchical structure among barriers. The goal is to systematically explore the best strategies and timing for overcoming these barriers. The findings indicate that institutional barriers, such as policy deficiencies and weak regulatory enforcement, are foundational challenges that must be addressed in the short term. Prioritizing institutional and technological barriers can mitigate the impact of surface-level barriers related to the natural environment and emergency response. Moreover, stakeholders underestimate the roles of public participation and natural environment barriers in urban flood resilience strategies. This highlights the need for a more balanced consideration of these barriers in long-term resilience planning to reduce the vulnerabilities of the public and marginalized groups and enhance ecosystem-based urban resistance and recovery capabilities. The urban heterogeneity of flood resilience barriers indicates cities in developing countries face policy gaps, limited technology, and resource constraints, while developed countries struggle with policy misalignment, underutilized technology, and bureaucratic inefficiencies in emergency management.