Evolving concepts in flood risk management: Searching for a common language

Abstract

Flood management is increasingly discussed as a risk management process, encapsulating as this does, terms such as ‘resilience’, vulnerability’, ‘hazard and ‘uncertainty’. The question is, is there a common consensus about what flood risk management means? The discussion of flood risk management is often confused by the use of language, which in turn obscures meaning. It is not always clear whether the concepts of ‘vulnerability’ and ‘resilience’ are new concepts, new labels applied to existing concepts or whether they are being consistently applied. There is consequently a risk that we are either talking about entirely different things using the same labels, or talking about the same things using different labels Diluting this ambiguity is the aim of the paper. After all, if we are to advance flood risk management in practice then we need a coherent set of concepts. This paper explores the range of concepts currently employed in the flood risk management literature in an attempt to provide a consistent and unambiguous language to improve communication and knowledge dissemination. To do so, requires an examination of a range of important concepts including, ‘resilience’, ’resistance’, ‘vulnerability’ and ‘uncertainty’. In this paper these concepts are defined and discussed by adopting a dynamic systems approach and recognizing that both the climate and flood risk management systems are constantly changing and developing.