From 23 to 25, March 2026, the STORIES project members Prof. Liang Emlyn Yang, Dr. Ylenia Casali, Mr. Wenhan Feng, Mr. Thanh Phuoc Ho and Mr. Hao Su from LMU Munich actively participated in the International Conference on Resilient Systems (ICRS 26) in Delft, Netherland.


Track 13: Best Practices and Innovation Potential for Enhancing Urban Resilience

Convened by Prof. Liang Emlyn Yang, Dr. Ylenia Casali, Wenhan Feng, together with Lorenzo Chelleri and Rudi Stouffs, this session brought together researchers and practitioners working on urban resilience, flood governance, infrastructure monitoring, and climate adaptation. The session featured a diverse range of presentations and posters addressing resilience challenges from both technical and social perspectives, with case studies spanning the Mekong Delta, Bangkok, India, and European cities.

Presentations from STORIES Project members

Prof. Liang Emlyn Yang, Wenhan Feng: Dynamic and interactive modeling of social resilience to flood impacts in the Mekong River Basin

This study examines how communities in the Mekong River Basin actively maintain resilience under recurrent flood conditions. Rather than focusing solely on risks and losses, the ERC-funded STORIES project investigates long-term adaptive practices including elevated housing, adjusted agricultural calendars, and community-based water governance. Combining historical analysis, fieldwork, and agent-based modeling, the research traces how resilience strategies evolve across time and space. Findings highlight that flood resilience is deeply embedded in social networks, institutional arrangements, trust, and cultural identity. The study reframes flood management from disaster response toward strengthening community resilience, offering a more socially grounded and sustainable perspective for climate adaptation in the Mekong region and beyond.


Dr. Ylenia Casali: Flood Robustness of Urban Road Networks Across Geographical Contexts

This study investigates the robustness of urban road networks under flood risk across ten global cities with differing geographical contexts. Using percolation theory and fragmentation analysis, robustness is assessed through changes in the size of the largest connected network component during simulated disruptions. Beyond network topology, the research considers how terrain, urban morphology, hydrology, and historical development patterns influence resilience outcomes. The comparison includes deltaic, coastal, riverine, and highland cities, highlighting how geographical context shapes vulnerability and redundancy within transport systems. The study contributes to resilience research by integrating network theory with spatial and environmental analysis, emphasizing that meaningful infrastructure resilience assessments must remain contextually grounded.


Thanh Phuoc Ho: Enhancing Urban Flood Resilience through Governance and Institutional Innovations: A Case Study of Can Tho City, Vietnam

This study explores how governance and institutional innovations have enhanced urban flood resilience in Can Tho, located in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta. Using interviews with government officials and surveys of more than 160 residents in Ninh Kieu District, the research evaluates the effectiveness of recent flood management initiatives. Key measures include the ODA-funded DA3 resilience project, the WD6 urban dike system, and the Flood Risk Management Information System (FRMIS), which supports real-time monitoring and adaptive flood control. Complementary policy frameworks strengthened community awareness and preparedness. Survey results indicate strong public confidence in flood protection improvements. The study demonstrates how infrastructure, governance reforms, and information systems together support long-term urban flood resilience.


Hao Su: From Challenges to Solutions: A Framework for Nature-Based Solutions Selection in Deltas

River deltas increasingly face compound risks including flooding, salinity intrusion, subsidence, and sediment loss, threatening long-term resilience under climate change. This study proposes a target-issue-based framework for selecting Nature-based Solutions (NBS) in delta regions. The framework consists of two steps: identifying dominant environmental stressors and matching them with suitable NBS measures such as mangrove restoration, wetland rehabilitation, floodplain reconnection, and sediment-trapping structures. Selected measures are translated into hydrodynamic model parameters, including roughness, infiltration, storage, and sediment transport variables, enabling quantitative scenario simulations. The framework provides a transferable approach for integrating ecosystem-based strategies into resilient delta planning and decision-support systems.