Non-Structural Flood Management in European Rural Mountain Areas—Are Scientists Supporting Implementation?

Felix Conitz,Gerd Lupp,Stephan Pauleit,Aude Zingraff-Hamed

doi:10.3390/hydrology8040167

Abstract

Mountain areas are highly exposed to flood risks. The latter are increasing in the context of climate change, urbanization, and land use changes. Non-structural approaches such as nature-based solutions can provide opportunities to reduce the risks of such natural hazards and provide further ecological, social, and economic benefits. However, few non-structural flood mitigation measures are implemented in rural mountain areas so far. The objective of this paper is to investigate if the scientific boundaries limit the implementation of non-structural flood management in rural mountain areas. In the study, we statistically analyzed the knowledge about flood management through a systematic literature review and expert surveys, with a focus on European rural mountain areas. Both methods showed that scientific knowledge is available for decision makers and that nature-based solutions are efficient, cost-effective, multifunctional, and have potential for large-scale implementation.

Highlights

Floods are natural processes in the global hydrological cycle in many terrestrial and transitional zones
Despite the unexpectedly rich knowledge in the literature about Flood management (FM) in mountainous areas, only 21% of the publications found related to FM in European rural mountainous areas (ERMA) (Table 4)
While pilot measures showed that technical knowledge exists and the European political agenda supports natural measures, what are the scientific boundaries supporting implementation? This study showed that scientific knowledge can support decision makers and is encouraging the implementation of nonstructural solutions because they are efficient, cost-effective, multifunctional, and have great potential for large-scale implementation

Summary

Introduction

Floods are natural processes in the global hydrological cycle in many terrestrial and transitional zones. They provide many regulating, provisioning, supporting, and cultural services and are crucial for the functioning and health of riverine ecosystems [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. In Europe, flood risks have mainly been caused by flash floods and river floods [18,19]. Flood risk is characterized by the hazard (e.g., the flood amplitude), exposure (e.g., if houses are within the floodplain) and vulnerability (e.g., if houses are sensitive to flood). Flood events are characterized by factors such as the intensity of precipitation, land use, stream network and size, and catchment area size and properties, in particular slope and soil conditions [6,20,21,22,23]

Objectives

Results

Discussion

Conclusion