Building Urban Resilience To Floods In Urban Communities Of The Coastal City Of Georgetown,Guyana

The fundamental structure of this research is based on the perception that flood events cannot be disparaged.Cities must reinvent themselves to confront future problems as a result of climate change’s unpredictability and an increase in extreme weather conditions such as prolonged and intense precipitation.As such,this research deems the main aim as to develop an urban resilience conceptual framework in the effort to guide decision-makers and urban planners to mitigate flood impacts in the coastal city of Georgetown,Guyana.That aim was further envisioned through the design of the urban regenerative plan for urban communities in Georgetown,which integrates urban planning and design strategies to prevent and mitigate future flooding while moving away from traditional floods control infrastructure.Consequently,a research’s five main objectives were used to accomplish these aims.The first objective was achieved through the case study analysis of Portland,Malmo,Rotterdam,Boston and Yanweizhou flood resilience strategies.Subsequently,the development and validation of the conceptual framework for urban resilience for measuring the coastal city of Georgetown,Guyana’s resilience to floods was a product of the second and third objectives.The conceptual framework’s content validity was assessed in the judgement stage,using equations of CVI and CVR that involved a panel of 10 experts ranging from local to international level.The framework was judged based on a set of 25 items sub-divided into five dimensions,namely;economic,environmental,social,infrastructural,institutional.Further,the expert’s judged all 25 items as having excellent content validity(CVR >0.62 and ICVI > 0.78).The framework’s overall SCVI was 0.95(SCVI/Ave)and 0.52(SCVI/UA).Following that,the design of the urban regenerative master plan was aimed at testing the principles defined in the theoretical phase of research by connecting theory with practice.As a result,the urban communities of North Turkeyen,North Pattensen and North Liliendaal,with a total area of 0.66 km2,was identified as an excellent environmental setting for this sort of demonstration,since it necessitated flood-resilient improvements at different morphological levels.In conclusion,this research highlighted the complexities of managing flood risk and acknowledged that it should not be viewed as a constraint,but rather as an opportunity for innovative designs and the creation of stimulating and inspirational landscapes and spaces.