A drought & flood resilience strategy for Berat MICHIEL VAN DRIESSCHE, WILLIAM VEERBEEK
Author: Michiel Van Driessche, Dr William Veerbeek
Affiliation: Felixx Landscape Architects & Planners, UNESCO IHE - Delft Institute for Water Education
Background
The Berat Island study centers around on a group of temporal islands (i.e. sand bars; sediment deposits) in the Osum River which are left bare during summer, when the river’s base flow is limited. During the driest periods, only a small stream is flowing through Berat section, leaving most of the riverbed exposed. Apart from a bottleneck located on the west of the city, the river sections around Berat are relatively wide. This leaves the city with an unused wasteland, covered by temporal vegetation. Due to the flood hazard during winter, these river islands are left relatively untouched. Yet, the opportunity the islands provide for the city, might be seized given that there are either limited, or no interferences at all in the existing river sections.
References
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Hollnagel, E., Woods, D. D., & Leveson, N. (Eds.). (2007). Resilience engineering: Concepts and precepts. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd
Knighton, D. (1996). Fluvial Forms and Processes: A New Perspective. Arnold, London Rosgen, D. L. (1994). A classification of natural rivers. Catena, 169-199
