Advancing conceptual modelling to explore resilience-relevant dynamics in coupled human–flood systems

Socio-hydrological and hydro-social research seeks to understand how water-related risks emerge from dynamic interactions between hydrological processes and social systems. In coupled human–flood systems, resilience-relevant dynamics include processes of long-term social learning and forgetting, the persistence and decay of adaptive capacity, and shifts in societal sensitivity that shape social vulnerability. While human–flood feedback models have improved the representation of non-stationary flood risk, adaptation dynamics are often treated implicitly or as static attributes, limiting insight into these long-term social processes. 

We advance a conceptual socio-hydrological modelling framework in which adaptation as part of social vulnerability is explicitly represented as a dynamic system property, consistent with the IPCC AR6 risk framework. By foregrounding vulnerability, the framework enables exploration of resilience-relevant dynamics in coupled human–water systems. The approach highlights the added value of socio-hydrological modelling for interpreting long-term flood-risk dynamics and adaptation pathways, in line with the IAHS HELPING Science for Solutions agenda.