Development of an integrated method to determine, present and manage flood risk in flood plains

Abstract

Due to the worldwide increasing threats of flooding as a consequence of climate change and the greater use by humans of natural floodplains, a change of paradigm from flood protection to integrated flood risk management (FRM) has taken place in Europe. This is reflected in the EU Flood Directive and in the German Act to Improve Preventive Flood Control. To fulfil these new legal requirements following an integrated flood risk assessment, the application and results of water management tools need to be accessible during spatial planning processes. The effects of land use management may negatively influence the flood risk potential in a certain area. Therefore decision makers need to quantify the cause and consequences relationship of their design. The first part of this paper describes the derivation of flood risk, using hydrological and hydraulic models and the simple and understandable visualization of the results in flood risk maps. The second part of the paper uses this methodology and links the models and results directly into the land use planning process through a Decision Support System (DSS). © 2009 WIT Press.