FLOOD RISK MANAGEMENT – A BASIC FRAMEWORK

Abstract

Floods are one of the most threatening natural hazards for human societies (e.g. WBGU 1999). This is evident from the increase in damages in the last 50 years due to a series of extreme floods (Munich Re Group 2003). Recently, the tsunami in South East Asia caused 220,000 deaths which makes it probably one of the most disastrous floods. During the International Decade of Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR) from 1990 to 1999 it was appreciated that the previous paradigm of flood protection was inappropriate (UNDRO 1991, Plate 1999). Absolute protection is both unachievable and unsustainable, because of high costs and inherent uncertainties. Instead, risk management has been recommended as being more suitable and this paradigm is now receiving growing attention within flood research (e.g. Plate 1999, Schanze 2002, Hall et al. 2003, Hooijer et al 2004). Also currently environmental and regional policies in many countries are starting to shift from flood protection to flood risk management (e.g. Budapest Initiative 2002, EU 2004).