Socioeconomic capacity includes two government expenditures: (1) the total annual budget for flood control (e.g. flood control projects along the rivers and coastal areas, regional drainage projects etc.); and (2) the government employees’ salaries for rep-resenting the extent of human resources of different cities to flood control or management. Man-made capacity includes: (1) the totalemergy content of sand, stone, and cement embodied in dikesand levees; and (2) the total construction and maintenance costof pumping stations. Finally, the emergy value of socioeconomic capacity and man-made capacity are summed to represent total adaptive capacity. If the urban system has a higher adaptive capac-ity, it will be able to reduce vulnerability by alleviating the potential damage in any specific area