HOW TO MINIMIZE URBAN FLOODING: PERMISSIBLE ARCHITECTURE AND URBAN PLANNING

Resumo

The floods in urbanized areas damage systemically the Brazilian municipalities during the highraining periods. The economic lost that the nation face with this phenomenon are not yet measured, althoughthrough the impacts’ extension it is possible to observe that they are affecting the South and Southeastregions during this decade. Disasters within the urban tissue are complex, as they turn the various types ofrisks in a mess, mixing the natural risks with the social ones and also with the technological and biologicalrisks. If society occupies inadequate areas like the floodplains of the rivers and change the hydrologicalregime of the river basins, they pay a higher price, both with the public works to control these floods, andwith the losses generated with floods and their aftermath. So, controlling a flood means intervene in severalprocesses and involved elements, trying to minimize their effects. The recognition and monitoring of areassubject to risk are indispensable tools to for avoiding or reducing the undesired effects and the measures thatassist the management of flooded areas are: maintenance, structural and non structural measures.This article objective is to study the potentialities of the non structural measures to combat the accidentsrelated to floods, through a local research. These measures can be adopted by the architects and urban planners and engineering professionals and collaborate in a systemic and efficient form to decrease these natural disasters damages and frequency.The first methodological procedure used for this research was the survey of actions and public worksimplemented in European, Asian and American cities during the last decade and analyze the probabilityof adapting these works to the Brazilian reality. These research findings are important subsidies for thepublic policies and urban projects development so that they minimize the urban floods, thus helping thesustainable development.