Community-Led Flood Adaptation in an Unregulated Settlement: Environmental Learning, Collective Action, and Flood Governance in Amman, Jordan

Urban flood adaptation research increasingly recognises the importance of community participation and local knowledge in strengthening urban resilience. However, limited attention has been given to how residents of unregulated settlements collectively reshape the built environment in response to recurrent flooding, and how these adaptive practices interact with ecosystem services and formal flood governance. This study examines community-led flood adaptation in an unregulated settlement in Bader District, Amman (Jordan), using a qualitative case study approach combining semi-structured interviews, field observations, spatial analysis, and document review. The findings show that adaptation extended beyond household coping strategies to include neighbourhood-scale interventions, including the construction of an artificial rainwater runoff channel, the extension of an unregulated street, and the incremental modification of dwellings. These practices emerged through experiential environmental learning, negotiated land-use adjustments, and collective action, while their effects remained spatially differentiated and constrained by infrastructure and governance limitations. The study highlights the importance of integrating community knowledge, ecosystem services, and participatory flood governance to support more context-sensitive and sustainable flood risk reduction in rapidly urbanising cities.