Introduction

The adverse impacts of climate change associated with rapid urbanization, such as rising sea levels, prolonged precipitation, and frequent and intense rainfall, are emerging as primary threats to our earth (White in Water and the city: risk, resilience and planning for a sustainable future. Routledge, 2013). Since urban areas are the center of economic and political activities and home to over half of the world’s population (Miao et al. in J Appl Meteorol Climatol 50(4):806–825, 2011), heavily populated areas, particularly low-lying coastal cities, are vulnerable to flooding caused by these events (Lo et al. in Appl Geogr 64:1–11, 2015). Despite the massive development of flood-control infrastructures such as channelization, dams and levees, flooding remains a dangerous, unpredictable, and frequent disturbance threatening cities worldwide (Shao and Xu in Urban Plann Int 2:1–3, 2015).