Is Bangkok Becoming More Resilient to Flooding? Laeni, Naim; Van Den Brink, Margo; Arts, Jos
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University of Groningen Is Bangkok becoming more resilient to flooding? Laeni, Naim; van den Brink, Margo; Arts, Jos Published in: Cities DOI: 10.1016/j.cities.2019.02.002 IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite from it. Please check the document version below. Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Publication date: 2019 Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database Citation for published version (APA): Laeni, N., van den Brink, M., & Arts, J. (2019). Is Bangkok becoming more resilient to flooding? A framing analysis of Bangkok's flood resilience policy combining insights from both insiders and outsiders. Cities, 90, 157-167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2019.02.002 Copyright Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). The publication may also be distributed here under the terms of Article 25fa of the Dutch Copyright Act, indicated by the “Taverne” license. More information can be found on the University of Groningen website: https://www.rug.nl/library/open-access/self-archiving-pure/taverne- amendment. Take-down policy If you believe that this document breaches copyright please contact us providing details, and we will remove access to the work immediately and investigate your claim. Downloaded from the University of Groningen/UMCG research database (Pure): http://www.rug.nl/research/portal. For technical reasons the number of authors shown on this cover page is limited to 10 maximum. Download date: 30-09-2021 Cities 90 (2019) 157–167 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Cities journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/cities Is Bangkok becoming more resilient to flooding? A framing analysis of T Bangkok's flood resilience policy combining insights from both insiders and outsiders ⁎ Naim Laeni , Margo van den Brink, Jos Arts Department of Spatial Planning and Environment, Faculty of Spatial Sciences, University of Groningen, PO Box 800, 9700, AV, Groningen, the Netherlands ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: The rapidly urbanizing cities in Southeast Asia experience increasing flood impacts due to the consequences of Flood resilience climate change. In these cities, policy efforts to build flood resilience are gaining momentum. The aim ofthis Flood risk management paper is to understand and assess flood resilience policy development, particularly in cities in developing Bangkok countries. Bangkok is one of the cities that participates in the 100 Resilient Cities Programme (100RC) - the Developing country international policy platform for building resilient cities. In 2017, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration Framing (BMA) launched the ‘Bangkok Resilience Strategy’ to translate the resilience concept to its urban context. A framing perspective is adopted to reconstruct the strategy, process and anticipated outcome of Bangkok's flood resilience policy. We studied data obtained from ‘insiders’ (involved policy makers, experts and consultants) and ‘outsiders’ (local communities, civil society organizations and news media). Findings indicate that the economic growth frame is prevailing in the development of Bangkok's flood resilience policy, prioritizing structural flood protection with little attention for flood adaptation measures and related social impacts among vulnerable communities. The role of local communities and civil society in the formulation of Bangkok's flood resilience policy is limited. This paper therefore recommends cities in developing countries and cities in the 100RC Programme to organize a more inclusive resilience building process for addressing social problems regarding urban poor communities along with increasing flood safety and protection. 1. Introduction Manuta, & Mai, 2009; Parnell, Simon, & Vogel, 2007). Concurrently with the increased recognition of the rising flood im- According to the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction pacts affecting cities globally, there is a growing demand for citiesto (UNISDR), flood is the most occurring disaster worldwide (CRED, become ‘more resilient’ in order to anticipate and prepare for en- 2016). Cities around the world experience an increasing flood impact vironmental challenges (Desouza & Flanery, 2013; Duit, Galaz, due to the consequences of climate change such as increased variability Eckerberg, & Ebbesson, 2010). Resilience as an urban policy goal can be and intensity of rainfall (The World Bank, 2010; Pelling, 2003). Cities in defined as the capacity of a city to withstand or adapt to shocksand Southeast Asia are mostly located in flood-prone areas (The World disturbances as well as the ability to adapt and transform to changing Bank, 2010). According to the World Bank's report on climate risk as- socio-ecological conditions (Davoudi, 2012; Holling, 1973). The in- sessment of Asian coastal megacities, major cities in Southeast Asia – creasing popularity of the resilience concept has stimulated various including Bangkok, Ho Chi Minh City and Jakarta – are among the top international organizations to apply the concept in policy programmes ten cities in the world which are expected to experience more intense such as the Rockefeller Foundation's 100 Resilient Cities programme flood events (Nicholls et al., 2008; The World Bank, 2010). Moreover, (100RC), the UNISDR Making Cities Resilient campaign, and the OECD UN-Habitat shows that 31% of the Southeast Asian urban population Resilient Cities project (Johnson & Blackburn, 2014; Spaans & lives in slums (Dahiya, 2012). These low-income urban populations are Waterhout, 2017; Vale, 2014). The main objectives of these pro- the most vulnerable to potential flood impacts and, at the same time, grammes are the promotion of resilience as a source of policy inspira- have the fewest resources for coping with the rising climate risks of tion, and the development of policy instruments for cities to address flooding (Berquist, Daniere, & Drummond, 2015; Lebel, Foran, Garden, acute shocks and chronic stresses that undermine the functions and ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (N. Laeni). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cities.2019.02.002 Received 14 May 2018; Received in revised form 8 November 2018; Accepted 9 February 2019 0264-2751/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. N. Laeni, et al. Cities 90 (2019) 157–167 development of cities (ARUP, 2014). Despite its popularity, the resi- to become more resilient to flood risks. These recommendations are also lience concept is difficult to operationalize and the adoption of resi- relevant for other cities in developing countries, and for other cities in lience in an urban context is often criticized for a lack of critical con- the 100RC Programme that are developing and implementing their sideration of the resilience building process and outcome (Duit et al., resilience strategy. 2010; Hutter & Kuhlicke, 2013; Pizzo, 2015; Vale, 2014; White & O'Hare, 2014). Recent studies on urban flood resilience mostly focused on cities in developed countries (e.g. Hegger et al., 2016; Lu & Stead, 2. Building inclusive, flood resilient cities 2013; Restemeyer, Woltjer, & van den Brink, 2015). As a consequence, until now little research has been conducted focusing on resilience 2.1. Flood resilient cities from a critical perspective building in cities in developing countries. While these cities are facing higher impacts from climate risks: they have large marginalized and Resilience is an internationally dominant and influential concept for disadvantaged populations, which are often at higher risk and exposed dealing with ecological threats and social and climate-related risks (Lu to floods, they have limited resources, and they have weak political & Stead, 2013). In particular, the resilient city policy framework is access and influence in flood risk management policies (Lebel et al., gaining momentum for cities to become more resilient to floods and 2009; Marks, 2015). other disaster risks (Restemeyer et al., 2015; Hegger et al., 2016; Therefore, the aim of this paper is to understand flood resilience Sörensen et al., 2016; Rosenzweig et al., 2018; Dai, van Rijswick, policy development in a city in a developing country. The city of Driessen, & Keessen, 2018). The resilience concept is, however, inter- Bangkok was selected as the central case study as it is one of the top ten preted differently across policy domains and places (Davoudi, 2012; Lu coastal cities that are highly likely to experience more frequent flood & Stead, 2013; Pizzo, 2015). In urban flood risk management, resilience events (Nicholls et al., 2008). Bangkok's high vulnerability to flooding interpretations are mainly influenced either by the traditional equili- is due to its geographical location, physical infrastructure and rapid brium perspective or the more recently developed evolutionary per- urbanization (Sintusingha, 2006; Marome, 2012; Nair, Wen, & Ling, spective (Hegger et al., 2016; Restemeyer et al., 2015). The first in- 2014). In addition, Bangkok recently participated in the 100RC Pro- terpretation is based on Holling's (1973) equilibrium perspective gramme and in 2017 formulated the ‘Bangkok Resilience Strategy’ to emphasizing the ability to withstand and recover from shocks and address a wide range of the city's problems (BMA, 2017). Drawing on disturbances.