What Can We Learn from Planning Instruments in Flood Prevention? Comparative Illustration to Highlight the Challenges of Governance in Europe

Mathilde Gralepois

doi:10.3390/w12061841

Abstract

Studying the selection of planning instruments in flood prevention can be critical to gain a better understanding of governance. This choice is underestimated in the flood management literature. This paper fills a knowledge gap in flood management governance by examining the rationales for the choice of instruments. The study is grounded on a comparative illustration of planning instruments in flood prevention in three European countries: England, France and the Netherlands. Flood prevention through spatial planning is a specific example, as the implementation of the Floods Directive has reactivated the role of spatial planning in urban agglomerations. The choice of instruments is never neutral. In the field of flood management, alignment among strategies is supposed to lead to resilience. Instruments should be aligned and coherent. Is that the case? The article explains the challenges of governance configured by a conflict between the spatial planning policy steered by local authorities and the risk prevention policy led by national authorities. This model is further complicated by the tension between the preference for legal, technical or scientific instruments, and the difference in professional culture between planning and prevention. The selection of instrument shows that if their conflicts are exacerbated to debates on variables or parameters, it is because there is no political agreement on the balance between development and security.

Highlights

Since the 1960s, flood management has been dominated by hazard assessment, defense strategy and infrastructural measures, as if human societies could indefinitely control nature [1,2]
Returning to the flood resilience literature, the case study analysis confirms that European governance face three challenges: adaptation, diversification and participation
Flood governance requires a serious shift from resistance to adaptation of both physical and socio-economic systems [6,85]

Summary

Introduction

Since the 1960s, flood management has been dominated by hazard assessment, defense strategy and infrastructural measures, as if human societies could indefinitely control nature [1,2]. In the 1990s, extreme hydrological events occurred in the River Rhine (1993, 1995), in the Mediterranean region (1994), and in Central Europe (1997) [3]. After this flood-rich decade in Europe, policymakers have focused attention on flood prevention and crisis management [4,5]. Since 2000, floods in Europe have caused at least 700 deaths, and €25 billion in insured economic losses [7]. Several studies and reports underline that global warming increases the frequency of river floods in Europe [8,9,10]

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