Urban growth, combined with the intensification of extreme rainfall events driven by climate change, has significantly altered the natural hydrological dynamics responsible for flood events, leading to an increased risk in urban areas. Indeed, the increase of impermeable surfaces, along with the inadequacy of urban drainage systems, can cause significant damage during heavy and short-duration rainfall events. These phenomena are also characterized by their localized nature, affecting specific urban or peri-urban areas that are often not recognized as floodable areas. This evolution in flood dynamics within increasingly urbanized contexts has highlighted the inadequacy of existing mitigation measures, which were originally conceived to address different types of flood risks. Therefore, it is crucial to design mitigation strategies that acknowledge the specific characteristics of these phenomena and integrate them into new urban development models and take into account citizens’ risk perception. To this end, understanding territorial evolution is essential for identifying new areas of hydraulic vulnerability that have not yet been recognized or sufficiently studied. In this context, the present study aims to investigate the relationship between urban growth and hydraulic vulnerability through an integrated methodological approach, based on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and survey-based risk perception analysis. The proposed methodology was applied to the case study of Bari (southern Italy), a coastal city whose metropolitan area is crossed by several episodic streams. The results identify new potentially vulnerable zones that escape traditional risk delineation methods, highlighting critical issues in urban development practices that have evolved without adequate consideration of the hydraulic morphology of the territory.