Strengthening the Resilience of Urban Retailers Towards Flood Risks - A Case Study in the Riverbank Region of Kaohsiung City

The urban environment is a complex system composed of the human-environment interactions within the physical-environmental system. It is constantly at the risk of the recurrent and prevalent flooding events in densely populated low land neighborhoods. Resilience is crucial to mitigating climate risks; this study ascertained the retail sector as the basic industry in Meinung with the Location Quotient (LQ) analysis; the interactive visualization tools supported and affirmed the retailers' concentration in the area most prone to flood risk. By conducting the semi-structured interviews for 15 key retailers, the study focused on the driver, pressure, state, impact, and response (DPSIR) framework to assess the knowledge, skills, and network capacity attained from climate change scenarios and flooding. The measurement of the level of resilience showed that retailers’ focus on strategic identification of potential weather-related risks and implementation of adaptation plans for each business's provision of services conformed to place-specificity criteria.

The results indicated that

1. mal-adaptation of mitigation measures focus only on short-term objectives and overlook long-term and the overall resilience potential;
2. the appropriate tools for resilience strengthening assessment ascertained the perceived vulnerability; the mitigation relies on knowledge, skill and network capacity attained from previous experiences;
3. interactive visual tools provided an accurate mean, evaluation, and implementation of an integrative interface to guide and enhance the process of resilience strengthening;
4. resilience adaptability from local retailers built an effective way to mitigate flood risks.

Finally, further research issues are identified with an effective resilience strengthening method against climate change.