The Role of Flood-adaptive Urban Design from the Perspective of Improving Risk Perception(An Interdisciplinary Systematic Review)

Following the culverting of rivers and the implementation of flood control infrastructure on riverbeds, people’s perceptions regarding the ecological dynamics of rivers, as well as environmental safety have been widely disturbed. This lack of accurate flood risk perception can potentially lead to many casualties and damages during severe flood events. Therefore, to achieve flood resilience, in addition to structural criteria, the improvement of non-structural criteria such as risk perception to enhance adaptation and preparedness of communities against floods, is considered a challenging topic. Considering the transition of river management from structural approaches to integrated approaches, which emphasize the participation of related disciplines, and the capability of urban design to enhance people’s perceptive experience of the environment, this study aims to conduct an interdisciplinary systematic review to investigate how urban design enters and integrates into the discussion of flood risk perception. By expanding the social-ecological model (SEM) of the study at different individual and environmental levels, three theoretical perspectives of environmental psychology, human geography, and nature conservation were selected as the foundation of the interdisciplinary study. Subsequently, by conducting a systematic review in the Scopus database in six steps, the role of urban design in improving flood risk perception was investigated. Urban design in the fields of environmental psychology, human geography, and nature conservation can play a critical role in expanding the perceptive experience of rivers and improving flood risk perception through perceived and aesthetic qualities, sense of place, and regulating ecosystem services, nevertheless urban design is facing many challenges in the mentioned fields. Therefore, as an initial step, urban design must determine how to adapt to these intervening factors and establish a balance with them.