Abstract
This paper explores the applicability of flood impact databases in the flood risk governance process. This study begins with a twofold analysis of three hydrographical basins: one analysis based on the data of a recently constructed flood-impact database for Portugal and another based on selected socioeconomic and biophysical variables that characterize the basins’ territorial context. From these sets of data, two fuzzy inference systems are assembled: one for the resource criteria and another for the time criteria. When plotted, the fuzzy analysis results are associated with distinct flood risk management strategies: operational and strategic, hard and soft measure-based. The three basins differ substantially in terms of flood-impact characteristics, with impacts being distinguished in terms of human and material consequences. Socioeconomic factors seem to be more explicative of flood impacts than the biophysical contexts that generate floods. The fuzzy logic analysis suggested priorities of action: early warning and information for one of the basins (Mondego) and a less operational solution, combining structural mitigation and land-use planning, for the other two basins (Lis and Vouga). Considering the current implementation of the Floods Directive, design of flood risk maps and flood risk management plans can benefit from the integration of the presented methodology.
Highlights
River basin management is discussed according to distinct perspectives seeking compromises between hydrologic, agronomic, ecologic and economic sustainable objectives (e.g., [1,2,3])
Directive” [8], which assumes a drift from the solutions that are intended to keep the floodwaters away from the floodplain to the spectrum of non-structural solutions, at the basin scale, which addresses the capacity of natural and social systems to adapt to, respond to and recover from flood disasters [9]. Such a drift in flood risk governance from “flood protection to flood risk management” [10] (p. 510) is recognizable regarding three developments: (1) a shift from an engineering perspective, which is intended to prevent flooding by considering design flood events, to a management perspective, which aims to be prepared for supra-standardized events and assumes the “living with floods” attitude, which leads to action in the vulnerability component of the risk equation; (2) the outset of risk-informed decision-making, which ponders the costs of available options and assesses proportionate responses to risk according to a cost-benefit analysis; and (3) the replacement of a risk reduction fragmented approach by an integrated systems approach where hard flood defenses are complemented or replaced by measures that mitigate flood impacts [10]
This study demonstrates the applicability of flood impact databases in the appraisal and management components of flood risk governance, going beyond the assessment of individual and societal risk
Summary
River basin management is discussed according to distinct perspectives seeking compromises between hydrologic, agronomic, ecologic and economic sustainable objectives (e.g., [1,2,3]). 510) is recognizable regarding three developments: (1) a shift from an engineering perspective, which is intended to prevent flooding by considering design flood events, to a management perspective, which aims to be prepared for supra-standardized events and assumes the “living with floods” attitude, which leads to action in the vulnerability component of the risk equation; (2) the outset of risk-informed decision-making, which ponders the costs of available options and assesses proportionate responses to risk according to a cost-benefit analysis (cf [11]); and (3) the replacement of a risk reduction fragmented approach by an integrated systems approach where hard flood defenses are complemented or replaced by measures that mitigate flood impacts [10] These shifts are crystallized in the EU “Floods Directive”
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