Damien Serre

Damien Serre
University of French Polynesia | Polynesie · Geography

Professor

About

118
Publications
42,026
Reads
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Introduction
Damien Serre is Professor at the University of French Polynesia and member of the UMR 241 EIO (Pacific Island Ecosystems). He is leading research in the area of resilience to risks and climate change with a special focus on resilience assessment, critical infrastructure management, spatial decision support systems to optimize resilience to different types of risks. He chaired or co-chaired many international tracks or session in his area of expertise e.g. the EGU General Assembly in Vienna in 2009, 2010, 2017 and 2018 as well as FLOODRISK 2016 International Conference in Lyon in 2016 (Disaster risk and recovery session). He is editor of the Journal of Water and Climate Change (IWA), editor of the journal Urban Risk Studies (ISTE) and member of the Editorial Board of the J. of FRM (Wiley).

Publications

Publications (118)
Article
Full-text available
Island territories and their coastal regions are subject to a wide variety of stresses, both natural and anthropogenic. With increasing pressures on these vulnerable environments, the need to improve our knowledge of these ecosystems increases as well. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have recently shown their worth as a tool for data acquisition in...
Article
This paper presents a review of existing strategies and tools aiming at facilitating the operationalization of the concept of resilience into built environments. In a context of climate change, increased risks in urban areas and growing uncertainties, urban managers are forced to innovate in order to design appropriate new risk management strategie...
Article
Full-text available
Climate change has an ever-increasing impact on island territories. Whether it is due to rising sea levels or the increase in recurrence and intensity of extreme events, island territories are increasingly vulnerable. These impacts are expected to affect marine and terrestrial biodiversity, human occupation (infrastructure) and other activities suc...
Article
Full-text available
Critical infrastructures serve human activities and play an essential role in societies. Infrastructural systems are not isolated but are interdependent with regard to social systems, including those of public health and economic and sustainable development. In recent years, both social and infrastructural systems have frequently been in dysfunctio...
Chapter
Faced with increasing risks and uncertainties in urban environments, local planners and decision-makers are forced to innovate their risk management strategies. In the 2000s, this strategy, which used to be focused on a hazard management, integrated new concepts such as the concept of resilience. Resilience, a multidisciplinary concept, is defined...
Chapter
The COVID-19 crisis raised issues over the resources and capacities of small islands and their populations, at high risk through various economic dependencies and health system limitations. French Polynesia was deeply shaken economically, politically, socially, psychologically and geographically by the threat and impact of the virus. Serious mortal...
Article
Full-text available
In the context of climate change and increasing urbanization, Small Island Developing States are increasingly vulnerable to natural disasters. In response to urbanization in at risk areas, the concept of territorial resilience has potential as an approach to urban flood issues. The objective of this research is to develop a spatial decision support...
Article
This paper presents a research project spanning over 15 years, dealing with territorial resilience to flooding. This paper presents a global retrospective view on how research on the concept of resilience began with a primary focus on critical infrastructure resilience networks. These infrastructures are always identified by experts as an aggravati...
Article
Faced with increasing urbanization and uncertainties linked to climate change, the scientific community has integrated the concept of resilience into urban management practices. Once revolutionary, now a buzzword, resilience is a concept that is difficult to transform into an integrated tool that stakeholders accept and adopt. This paper offers a p...
Preprint
Full-text available
This paper proposes a review of existing strategies and tools aiming at facilitating the operationalization of the concept of resilience into built environments. In a context of climate change, increased risks in urban areas and growing uncertainties, urban managers are forced to innovate in order to design appropriate risk management strategies. A...
Article
Full-text available
In the context of climate change and increasing urbanization, floods are considerably affecting urban areas. The concept of urban resilience may be an interesting means of responding to urban flood issues. The objective of this research is to propose a spatial decision support tool based on geovisualization techniques and a resilience assessment me...
Article
On the one hand Dublin is exposed to flooding and on the other hand Dublin’s urban development requires urbanizing flood-prone areas. That is why, in order to cope with floods, city managers claim to implement new actions to improve the resilience of their territory. At the same time, resilience raises many academic debates on its definitions and o...
Preprint
Full-text available
In the context of climate change and increasing urbanization, floods are considerably affecting urban areas. The concept of urban resilience may be an interesting means of responding to urban flood issues. The objective of this research is to propose a spatial decision support tool based on geovisualization techniques and a resilience assessment me...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The number of smartphone applications to alert and inform the population in a risk situation in France is too large and these solutions are still unknow by the population. This study proposes an evaluation protocol based on various indicators, which take into account the capacity of the applications to send a targeted alert, their attractiveness, t...
Article
Over-urbanization coupled with a climate change has led to an increase in urban floods, both in frequency and intensity. Faced with growing uncertainties, managers are struggling to find appropriate risk management strategies. Alongside traditional risk management strategies, the concept of Urban Resilience is embedded in political discourses, inte...
Poster
Full-text available
Parmi les nombreuses applications smartphones récemment créées pour alerter la population, quelles sont celles qui ont le meilleur potentiel pour être un moyen d'alerte et d'information efficace en France? 50 applis smartphones alertant la population en France ont été sélectionnées et analysées via 4 indicateurs : 1) le potentiel d'alerte ; 2) le p...
Article
Il existe en France différentes applications smartphone qui prétendent informer ou alerter la population en cas de survenue d’un risque majeur, imminent ou en cours. Ces solutions, logicielles et matérielles, offriraient l’avantage de réduire le délai de communication entre les centres de décision et les personnes qui se situent dans un environneme...
Article
Full-text available
Il existe en France différentes applications smartphone qui prétendent informer ou alerter la population en cas de survenue d’un risque majeur, imminent ou en cours. Ces solutions, logicielles et matérielles, offriraient l’avantage de réduire le délai de communication entre les centres de décision et les personnes qui se situent dans un environneme...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Les gestionnaires de la RATP (Réseau Autonome des Transports Parisiens) doivent assurer la sécurité, la capacité de service et la pérennité d'un patrimoine d'infrastructures hétérogène et ancien. Pour ce faire, la stratégie de maintenance actuelle est principalement préventive. Le point de départ est l'évaluation de la performance des ouvrages, fon...
Chapter
The behaviour of the urban network infrastructures, and their interactions during flood events, will have direct and indirect consequences on the flood risk level in the built environment. By urban network infrastructures we include all the urban technical networks like transportation, energy, water supply, waste water, telecommunication… able to s...
Chapter
Dikes are often the final means of flood defense in times when territories situated beyond dikes have avoided flooding as a result of other events (such as drainage system overflow or runoff). Dikes have been in existence for many years, and some countries have found themselves with no other choice but to construct dikes in order to increase land m...
Article
On-going changes in cities caused by rapid urbanisation and climate change have increased both the flood probability and the severity of flooding. Consequently, there is a need for all cities to adapt to climate and socio-economic changes by developing new strategies for flood risk management. The following risk paradigm shifts from traditional to...
Article
Full-text available
The behaviour of the urban network infrastructures, and their interactions during flood events, will have direct and indirect consequences on the flood risk level in the built environment. By urban network infrastructures we include all the urban technical networks like transportation, energy, water supply, waste water, telecommunication…able to sp...
Chapter
The question of resilience as an adaptation to socioterritorial systems has found its place in the drive to make cities more resilient. This injunction comes from a slow rise in awareness of the vulnerability of urban spaces. As a result, the issue of resilience is particularly important when applied to towns.
Book
Full-text available
Le développement des zones urbaines sur la planète, où l’espace est devenu une ressource deplus en plus rare, avec de forts déséquilibres sociaux et des destructions environnementalesélevées, nécessite de guider l’évolution des systèmes urbains complexes tout en répondantaux enjeux liés aux risques et aux désordres urbains qui en découlent. En effe...
Article
Full-text available
Disaster risk information is spatial in nature and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) play an important key role by the services they provide to society. In this context, to risk management and governance, in general, and to civil protection, specifically (termed differently in many countries, and includes, for instance: c...
Article
This paper focuses on the vulnerability and protection of critical urban infrastructure from flooding. It presents a pragmatic and rapid screening procedure, referred to as a ‘Quick Scan methodology’. The purpose of the Quick Scan is to provide guidance for network operators and decision makers on identifying and rating those critical infrastructur...
Article
Full-text available
The experience feedback on a crisis that hit a city is frequently used as a "recollection" tool. To capitalize information about an experience feedback from the cities that have been affected by a natural hazard, the authors propose in this study a functional model to model scenarios of city crises. In this model, the city, considered as a complex...
Article
Full-text available
Urbanisation and climate change have increased both the probability and the severity of flooding. The risk paradigm that follows shifts from traditional to more integrated approaches, since one of the main tasks emerging for flood managers is the development of resilient cities. The concept of urban resilience is becoming more and more important, d...
Article
The concept of urban resilience has taken a leading edge by incorporating the multiscalar interactions within an urban system, revealing the short- and long-term impacts, spatial dependencies, and inequalities. The issue now is to enable local authorities and urban stakeholders to grasp and apply the resilience approach. Technical networks and urba...
Article
Full-text available
In recent years, resilience has become a key term in disaster risk management (DRM). Its potential has been mainly discussed with respect to social-ecological systems as well as communities. With respect to Critical Infrastructures (CIs) however, resilience and vulnerability are often used without clear definition and reference to the DRM context....
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Levee risk control is crucial. Regrettably, these long linear structures are badly maintained most of the time, showing signs of weaknesses on numerous occasions. Only imperfect information is usually available. In this particular context, a probability-based model is suggested for evaluating the levee performance, taking into account expert engine...
Article
Full-text available
The experience feedback on a crisis that hit a city is frequently used as a "recollection" tool. However, it may not be held in itself as a tool for analyzing a city's performance. The city, considered as a complex system, was modeled using a functional analysis method. Based on such modeling, two risk analysis methods (Failure Mode and Effect Anal...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
The RATP is the operator and asset manager of a public railway transport. Nowadays, the assessment of the structural integrity is primarily based on visual inspections. The requirement of maintenance actions are founded on these monitoring actions' results and the experts' knowledge. Managers must select and prioritize the maintenance actions from...
Article
The resilience concept seems to be a promising one for a better risk management in cities. And yet, even the interesting capacities related to the concept: absorption, adaptation and learning are difficult to implement at an operational level. Thus, our research is much more concerned in building the conditions for a resilient city rather than char...
Article
Full-text available
Resilience is a buzzword which highlights numerous debates in academic field, particularly concerning its practical relevance. That is why researches concerning methodologies development and tools in order to analyze resilience are particularly important. Thus this research proposes a methodology for analyzing urban resilience and introduces the de...
Article
Full-text available
Recent changes in cities and their environments, caused by rapid urbanisation and climate change, have increased both flood probability and the severity of flooding. Consequently, there is a need for all cities to adapt to climate and socio-economic changes by developing new strategies for flood risk management. Following a risk paradigm shift from...
Article
Full-text available
In recent years, resilience has become a key term in disaster risk management (DRM). Its potential has been mainly discussed with respect to social-ecological systems as well as communities. With respect to Critical Infrastructures (CIs) however, resilience and vulnerability are often used without clear definition and reference to the DRM context....
Conference Paper
This paper focuses on the vulnerability and protection of critical urban infrastructure from flooding. It presents a pragmatic and rapid screening procedure, referred to as a “Quick Scan methodology”. The purpose of the Quick Scan is to provide guidance for network operators and decision makers on identifying and rating those critical infrastructur...
Article
La résilience est un concept de plus en plus utilisé en gestion des risques. Elle peut être définie comme la plus ou moins grande capacité d’un système à absorber une perturbation et à récupérer ses fonctions à la suite de cette perturbation. La recherche d’indicateurs de résilience est dès lors nécessaire pour rendre ce concept opérationnel. Conce...
Article
Full-text available
Urban management of rainfall periods is evolving at present towards solutions that are closer to a territorial approach. To achieve this, an evolution must be made on traditional logics concerning drainage systems, whose objective is to drain water away from urban areas as quickly as possible, by using essentially technical skills and know-how. Ter...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Le patrimoine d'infrastructures de la RATP, très hétérogène en termes techniques et d'âge de construction, doit garantir l'exploitation d'un réseau de transport public ferroviaire en toute sécurité. L'évaluation de l'état de santé des ouvrages repose aujourd'hui sur l'expertise, après inspection visuelle de leurs signes de dégradation. Dans un cont...
Article
Levees are large alignment works on which only imperfect information are usually available. In this particular context, a probability-based model is suggested for evaluating the levee performance, taking into account imperfect data in a probabilistic format. Such a model will implement subjective probabilities that have been elicited by expert asse...
Article
Full-text available
In Europe, river floods have been increasing in frequency and severity. These circumstances require the management of flood risk by integrating new concepts like urban resilience. Nevertheless, urban resilience seems to have no accurate meanings. That is why researchers are primarily concerned with defining resilience. Nevertheless, focus on resear...
Article
On the one hand Dublin is exposed to flooding and on the other hand Dublin urban development requires urbanizing flood-prone areas. That is why, in order to cope with floods, city managers claim to implement new actions to improve the resilience of their territory. At the same time, resilience raises many academic debates on its definitions and ope...
Article
Full-text available
Each natural event that affects urban regions reveals the limitations of present risk management strategies and shows the prevailing importance of technical systems before, during and after each crisis. The response of such systems to risk can be discussed in terms of resilience. Resilience is a concept that applies generally to systems, and concer...
Article
Urban resilience is a new approach in urban development and risk management that focuses on disturbance absorption and functions recovery. Urban resilience is then based on urban services which support the cities functions and yet, display several critical issues in risk management. When considered as socio-technical systems in which physical netwo...
Article
Full-text available
New Orleans has coped with natural disasters since it is founding, but the most destructive was Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, both a natural and a man-made disaster. The resultant flooding demonstrates that the management of flood risk must incorporate new concepts like urban resilience in the city's planning process. The goal is to assess if r...
Article
Flood is one of the major natural hazards. It calls for suitable analytical approaches to identify the potential hazards and vulnerabilities for decision makers in different levels, with a particular concern on critical infrastructures. The paper presents a stepwise approach to proceed throughout risk and vulnerability assessment. It comprises a co...
Article
Full-text available
Every natural event impacting urban territories reveals the limits of present risk management strategies and shows the prominent role played by technical networks in crisis and post-crisis management. By means of a transversal approach, urban engineering can be used for analysing technical constraints that lead to the way networks are designed and...
Article
Full-text available
Natural hazards threaten the urban system and its components that are likely to fail. With their high degree of interdependency, urban networks and services are critical issues for the resilience of a city. And yet, network managers are scarcely aware of their flaws and dependencies and they are reluctant to take them into account. In order to deve...
Article
Full-text available
Urban resilience questions the way we think urban systems and disturbances. Applied to cities, resilience is the ability of a city to absorb a disturbance and recover its functions after the disturbance. Then, urban systems need to adapt their functioning and their components to possible disturbances. In managing the crisis and organizing the recov...
Article
Levees are large alignment civil engineering works with a performance that is assessed with great difficulty due to its longitudinal variability. We hereby suggest that a decision-making support procedure should be identified, built and implemented so as to split levee alignments into homogeneous sections and identify them according to their perfor...
Book
In France, as in the rest of Europe, river floods have been increasing in frequency and severity. In the same time, the total urban population is expected to double from two to four billion over the next 30 to 35 years. These circumstances oblige to manage flood risk by integrating new concepts like urban resilience. The main aim of this paper is t...
Article
The behavior of the civil engineering infrastructures, and their interactions during a flood event, will have consequences on the flood risk level in the built environment. By civil engineering we include on one hand the flood defenses, able to increase the flood risk in case of failures, on the other hand the urban technical networks able to sprea...
Article
The behaviour of the civil engineering infrastructures, and their interactions during a flood event, will have consequences on the flood risk level in the built environment. By civil engineering we include on one hand the flood defenses, able to increase the flood risk in case of failures, on the other hand the urban technical networks able to spre...
Article
Full-text available
New Orleans have coped with natural disasters since its founding over 290 years ago, but the most destructive and damaging was Hurricane Katrina in August 2005, both a natural and a man-made disaster. Katrina, the resultant flooding and New Orleans' subsequent on-going recovery demonstrate that the management of flood risk must incorporate new conc...
Article
In this paper, the concept of vulnerability to natural hazards is used to predict the average level of damage and aging that may occur on a large scale in a water storage tank. To estimate the state of these storage tanks, we develop in this study a diagnosis method based on the vulnerability index (I v), taking into account all affecting; environm...
Article
Full-text available
I have a PhD in Geographic Information Sciences (GIS) entitled "River levee performance assessment. Criteria design in a Geographic Information", defended in 2005 and obtained with the higher distinction. These three years of research have been lead at the Cemagref laboratory, in the department "Hydraulic Infrastructures and Hydrology" and have bee...