Flood induced vulnerability in strategic plan making process of Riyadh city

Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, is undergoing a critical transition when the conventionally thought desert climate has been witnessing 'turning-to-be-regular' flash floods. Since 2009, the city has been repeatedly hit by flash floods that has put further adverse consequences on the properties and even resulting in death tolls. Such critical transition has made the think-tanks seriously re-think about the resilient capacity of the existing infrastructure. Although the city has been attempted to plan, develop and expand under a number of master planning regimes, the 'emerging-recurrent' flash flood was not critically considered in the plan making process. However, the recent MEDSTAR comprehensive strategic development initiative has brought a new hope with re-conceptualizing the planning strategies in the plan making and revision processes. Thus, this study attempts to evaluate the credibility of master plans with an especial focus on MEDSTAR to find out the resilience power against flash flood driven adverse consequences. The evaluation is carried out with the lens of social and physical vulnerabilities of flash floods and associated risks of the proposed strategies for growth and land use of Riyadh until 2030. The evaluation suggests that many areas of Riyadh city, formally proposed with specific land uses, densification and expansion plan, are prone to both social and physical vulnerabilities of flood in the scale of 'high' to 'moderate' vulnerability induced risks. With the aid of composite flood vulnerability (social and physical) index, therefore, this study suggests MEDSTAR comprehensive development strategy to undergo another re-evaluation process that perhaps will strongly influence the current investment decision on infrastructure to make Riyadh resilient against the 'emerging-recurrent' flash floods.