Editorial

Abstract

This issue of the Journal of Flood Risk Management (JFRM) commences the eighth year of our publication, having become an established and recognised platform for the dissemination of knowledge and practice in our area. It has long been my view that flood risk is essentially a human problem since risk is a measure of the potential for harm or damage that flooding can cause, and, harm and damage are human constructs rather than being intrinsic to the natural world. However the management of the flood risk involves a combination of activities or actions which may have physical effects on the propagation of the flood waters or have effects on the social and environmental ‘receptors’ of the impact of inundation. The papers in this issue illustrate the breadth of flood risk management as an area of interdisciplinary professional activity. To manage flood risk it is essential to understand the characteristics of the flood source through to the likely impacts of inundation. Two of the papers in this Issue of JFRM cover computational modelling of flood propagation. Huthoff et al. demonstrate the value of 2D modelling using standard commercial software for understanding the evolution of the nature of risk in the large flood plains of the Middle Mississippi River following the rupture of a levee in a major flood, introducing a categorisation of three phases inundation with differing potential impacts. On the other hand the contribution by Ransom and Younis presents a development in the numerical techniques for accurate 2D simulation of dambreak flows. These extreme flows are a more severe test of the numerical algorithms than slowly rising and falling floods; such advances will also be of value in similar contexts for example flash floods and the initial phase of levee failure as noted by Huthoff et al. The paper by Almoradie et al. illustrates another use of information technology in flood risk management, that of enabling and facilitating stakeholder dialogue and participation in flood risk management plans and strategies, a topic I raised in an earlier Editorial (Samuels 2012). This paper illustrates how this can be achieved at a local level through two real case studies from the UK and Germany. One means of mitigating flood risk – particularly residual risk – is by flood insurance, although the availability and uptake of flood insurance varies markedly between different countries as is illustrated in the introduction of the paper by Aliagha et al. This paper then discusses the factors that influence the decisions for residential property owners in Malaysia on whether or not to purchase flood insurance. The starting point for assessing interventions in the flood risk system is data on the factors that determine the existing nature of the risk; this issue of the JFRM contains two papers relating to the analysis of data. The paper by Paulikas and Rahman provides a temporal assessment of flooding fatalities in Pakistan covering a period of over 60 years using data from the EM-DAT International Disaster Database. The analysis of this data leads to the identification that whilst summer monsoonal flooding is the most frequent cause of deaths across the country, the greatest number of fatalities are caused by the landfall of tropical cyclones. Hasanpour Kashani et al. discuss a new approach to a common problem in analysing river flood data, the construction of a rating curve; this paper compares the performance of three artificial intelligence algorithms with more conventional approaches. The methods are assessed against data obtained on the Kizilirmak River in Turkey with the conclusion on this case that the Adaptive Nero-Fuzzy Inference System provided the best performance. Flood management can bring benefits to society beyond the avoidance of damage; this is central to the WMO Associated Programme on Flood Management (see: http://www.apfm.info/ ) that views Integrated Flood Management as integrating land and water resources development in a river basin, within the context of Integrated Water Resources Management. The remaining paper in this issue of JFRM by Saher et al. considers ‘spate irrigation’ that is used for flood water harvesting, in hill torrent areas of Pakistan. The paper describes application of GIS to facilitate sustainable water planning through the conservation of excess water resources thus reducing the flash flood hazard of hill torrents and making flood water available for irrigation. I hope that my brief sketch of the content of this issue, drawing on applications in America, Europe and Asia, will encourage you to read the papers and also consider offering a paper about innovation or insights from your own work in flood risk management whether as a researcher or as a practitioner.