Abstract ID: 3.5324 | Accepted as Talk | Talk | TBA | TBA

Flood risks in the Himalayan Mountains regions are exacerbated by climate change, underdevelopment, and rapid urbanisation. This highlights the need for improved infrastructure planning and decision-making to strengthen resilience to flood impacts. Traditional “predict-and-control” approaches and top-down frameworks demonstrate limitations in addressing the multifaceted nature of the flood resilience concept. While existing literature focuses on technical aspects of flood resilience, such as risk assessment and providing physical reinforcements, it lacks a holistic consideration of social, environmental, geographical, and technical dimensions. This study addresses this limitation by integrating Grid-Group Theory within the Participatory system dynamics (PSD) approach. The new system-based collective action approach helps to understand diverse perspectives, develop a shared understanding around complex issues such as flood risks and enables collective action for the co-development of flood resilience infrastructure solutions. This research applies this method in underdeveloped, high-risk regions such as Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, in the Himalayan Mountains region. The research uses a mixed method to employ qualitative methods (participatory workshops, site observations, and project-specific interviews) to develop the system dynamics models with stakeholder participation and quantitative methods (statistical and sensitivity analyses) for data analysis and model validation. In a recent field campaign conducted in Gilgit Baltistan, diverse stakeholders (Local authorities, NGOs, private sector, and local communities) were engaged in 13 system-based collective action workshops, 25 site observations, and 63 interviews. Preliminary findings reveal a heavy emphasis (83%) on engineering resilience (resist and bounce back) in current flood resilience interventions, with limited consideration (17%) for ecological resilience (bounce forth) and a complete absence of socio-ecological resilience (adapt and transform into a new normal). Furthermore, the system dynamics model identified critical interdependencies and root causes, highlighting leverage points for improved resilience outcomes. This multidisciplinary research contributes to knowledge surrounding resilience, infrastructure planning and participatory system dynamics modelling methods for enhancing decision-making in flood resilience infrastructure planning and implementation.