Better flood risk management

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Better flood risk management
colin green Flood Hazard Research Centre,
Middlesex University
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Institutions as ontology
Ontology the category of things
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Key messages

• Dealing with systems
• We have to become better at learning
• We cannot fix institutional integration by
  changing the boundaries
• Process rather than product is the key
• We have to become better at conversation
• Ultimately, it is about how we should relate to
  each other, and how good we are at managing those
  relationships

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Contradictions and implications of public
participation

• Freude am Fluss Conference
• Nijmegen, October 22
• Noelle Aarts

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Interactive planning is considered to be

• an important way to improve the quality of
  governmental plans as well as
• to involve people in the decision-making process,
  
• whereby they can learn to understand both
  problems and solutions,
• resulting in greater support for the better end
  result!

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Public participation problems and dilemmas

• Complex relationships with politics and
  politicians
• Time-consuming processes
• Unimaginative compromises with little support
• Difficulty to define and claim success
• Power struggle instead of common adaptation

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Setting free and staying involved by

• Being alert
• Giving chance to coincidences taking place
• Creating room for experimentation
• Problematising the issue of accountability
• Intervening if needed
• Connecting to what moves people
• Using studies of social processes in
  policy-development

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Space for the River Space for People?

• Social and policy connections between rivers and
  people
• Thomas A. Birkland
• North Carolina State Universitytom_birkland_at_ncsu.
  edu

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What does space for the river mean?

• space for the river to fulfill its ecological
  functions which many of you know better than I
  do.
• Seasonal flow regimes and the ecosystem
• Flooding and benefits to agriculture
• Flooding as a natural process, not as a disaster
• But we also have to make room for people

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We try to control nature rather than work with it

• Gilbert White taught us sixty years ago that we
  need to work with the land instead of against it
• Yet we still channelize rivers, build levees,
  dams, etc.
• And, in the end, these systems fail in the short
  and in the longer run
• In the United States, the political system
  invites wasteful spending.

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Is it possible to provide space for people and
for rivers? Yes

• Policies should not promote risk
• Land use policies should account for ecosystem
  function
• Only river-dependent land uses should be put in
  floodplains.
• Existing development in flood plains requires
  more reliable protection than currently exists.
• Policies should promote sustainability of
  riverine systems

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Conclusion

• Rivers are natural and social systems
• Both these systems deserve to be harmonized