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Environmental risks

Uneven burden of urban flooding

Nature Sustainability volume 6, pages 9–10 (2023)Cite this article

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Modelling techniques now allow flood risk to be mapped down to street or even building level in a study showing that floods disproportionately affect disadvantaged communities and particular ethnic groups.

Who floods? Does everyone have an equal chance of being affected, or do certain groups within populations shoulder more of the burden? This year alone has seen major flooding in Australia, the United States and Pakistan, and answering these questions is vital not only to better prepare for future flooding episodes but also, in their aftermath, to direct help in ways tailored to the specific communities that have been impacted1. Until recently, most flood maps have not had the granularity needed to answer such questions. Writing in Nature Sustainability, Sanders and colleagues2 now describe a numerical model capable of simulating flooding at 3 m spatial resolution across nearly 7,000 km2 of the greater Los Angeles area. They obtain hazard maps and combine them with census data to show which Angelenos suffer most from flooding.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

    Paul Bates

  2. Fathom, Bristol, UK

    Paul Bates

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  1. Paul Bates
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Correspondence to Paul Bates.

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Bates, P. Uneven burden of urban flooding. Nat Sustain 6, 9–10 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-01000-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-01000-9

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