Nonstructural Flood Damage Reduction Within the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Abstract

Flood damage reduction basically consists of two approaches: structural and nonstructural. Structural flood damage reduction projects are those that focus on altering the characteristics of the flood, leaving the structures in the floodplain that could be damaged by floods unaltered. Nonstructural flood damage reduction projects are those that focus on altering the characteristics of the structures that could sustain flood damages, leaving the characteristics of the flood unaltered. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) has long been a major force in flood damage reduction within the United States. Corps involvement began in the early part of the 19th century when Congress gave the Corps authority to improve navigation on inland river systems. This involvement continued to evolve during the remainder of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. The Flood Control Act of 1917 was the first official legislation that authorized the Corps to have a significant role in flood damage reduction activities across the nation. Subsequent to that time, the Corps has constructed and currently operates 383 major lake and reservoir projects, constructed and maintains over 8,500 miles of levees and dikes, and built hundreds of smaller local flood damage reduction projects that have been turned over to non-federal authorities for operation and maintenance. Historically, most flood damage reduction projects within the Corps have been considered structural, with a rather narrowly defined focus of removing the threat of flooding from existing floodplain development. This rather narrow focus ultimately led to increased flood damages. In many areas the floodplains that sustained less frequent flooding due to Corps projects were actually developed more extensively than they would have been without the flood damage reduction project. However, this began to change in the Corps in the early 1960’s.