Human-flood systems

This chapter reviews human-flood systems through a sociohydrological lens, highlighting the long-term dynamics and feedbacks that shape flood risk and its management. Flood risk management is reframed from short-term hazard reduction toward adaptive and resilient strategies supported by dynamic risk scenarios that capture phenomena such as levee and adaptation effects. Models that link individual behaviours with system-level processes, which represent explicitly the continuous feedbacks between floods and society, are reviewed. Progress in this field depends on interdisciplinary cooperation and methodological pluralism: integrating insights from critical social sciences enriches sociohydrological modelling with considerations of justice, power, and political economy, while combining system dynamics and agent-based models enables a holistic understanding of complex trajectories. Recognizing social heterogeneity is essential to diagnose vulnerability and ensure equitable adaptation. Sociohydrologic approaches also support participatory risk communication and the co-design of locally tuned strategies that are more effective than uniform, top-down measures. Finally, by incorporating human behaviour into flood forecasting and evacuation planning, sociohydrology demonstrates both immediate and long-term value for advancing dynamic, inclusive, and effective flood risk management.