Comparative case study uncovers six constructive resilience patterns in seven water-based settlements, highlighting architecture and resource governance as keys to flood coexistence.
Key Points
To examine the spatial, constructive, and ecological strategies developed by traditional aquatic communities to withstand hydro-climatic hazards.
Conducted a multiple-case comparative analysis of seven water-based settlements across five hydro-climatic contexts in Cambodia, Colombia, Peru, Iraq, Vietnam, Ghana, and the Philippines/Malaysia.
Synthesized peer-reviewed literature, satellite imagery, architectural drawings, field observations, and stakeholder interviews across 14 IPCC AR6 hazards and five exposure categories.
Identified six core resilience patterns operating across material, morphological, and territorial scales: streetless organization, territorial mobility, repairable stilt structures, kit-house logic, material cascading, and voluntary abandonment of substrates.
Demonstrated that the settlements exhibiting the highest resilience combine multiple spatial and constructive patterns simultaneously.
Found that hazards such as drought, salinization, and erosion remain largely unaddressed across the majority of vernacular settlements studied.