Adapting a systems perspective for sectoral coordination: Approaching flood resilience in Houston and Accra

Increasing resilience to flooding is a complex process that requires horizontal and vertical coordination between institutions in policy making and implementation. This paper explores the effect of institutional coordination on managing flood risk in two cities plagued by flooding. Our results show that efforts on building urban flood resilience can be undermined by lack of proper coordination between urban development, water management and land use planning. We find that this complexity is magnified by the emergence of the concept of resilience as an urban development goal that is increasingly pursued by various authorities, but that is inherently contested in practice.