Author(s): Paul Samuels; Mark Morris; Paul Sayers; Jean-Dominique Creutin; Andreas Kortenhaus; Frans Klijn; Erik Mosselman; Ad Van Os; Jochen Schanze
Linked Author(s): Erik Mosselman, Paul Samuels
Keywords: No Keywords
Abstract: Little of the European coast line or land area has escaped human influence, with increasing pressures over generations of settlement, agriculture, industry and commerce. The pressures include water and flood management activities which control the extent and frequency of floods and the drainage of water from the land. Internationally, policies and practice in flood risk management are evolving in response to many drivers including climatic forcing (changes in precipitation, sea level rise etc), increasing potential for damage, decreasing acceptance of and resilience to flooding, competing demands on public expenditure and ageing of flood defence infrastructure. An important development of policy is the European Directive on the assessment and management of flood risks, which entered into force across the EU in November 2007. Full integration of flood risk management with other aspects of water management and spatial planning leads to the concept of integrated flood risk management. The basic characteristics of IFRM are to seek to: ·Reduce the occurrence of flooding–acting on the probability of floods and their, speed, depth and duration ·Reduce the harmful consequences should a flood occur–acting to reduce the potential exposure to flooding or reducing the vulnerability and aiding individuals and organisations to act wisely during a flood. ·Promote sustainable development to let future generations meet their flood risk management needs. The European Commission funded the Integrated Project FLOODsite (2004-2009) to examine integrated flood risk analysis and management methodologies and to provide support for the European Directive. This paper provides a discussion of what constitutes “integrated flood risk management” , in the light of the experience of FLOODsite. There are many references in this paper to individual FLOODsite Tasks (of which there were 35). The project website www. floodsite. net has details of the tasks and over 100 reports on their outcomes.
Year: 2010