Development And Flood Risk

This book sets out practical guidance in assessing flood risk as part of the development process. It describes the mechanisms and impacts of flooding, whether caused by rivers, the sea, estuaries, groundwater, overland flow, artificial drainage systems or infrastructure failure.

A Practice Guide that has been produced to support Development and Flood Risk - Planning Policy Statement 25 by providing information about positive planning at all levels in order to deliver appropriate sustainable development in the right places, taking full account of flood risk.

This valuable edition brings together 25 peer reviewed articles on technical, socio-economic, environmental and policy aspects of flood risk management. Some emerging technologies are presented and several future challenges are identified. Thus the book forms an excellent reference for the engineers, scientists, planners, policy-makers, researchers, insurance industry and all the practitioners involved in flood risk management.

This guidance explains how flood risk should be considered at all stages of the planning and development process in order to reduce future damage to property and loss of life. It sets out the importance the Government attaches to the management and reduction of flood risk, to acting on a precautionary basis and taking account of climate change. It summarises the responsibility of various parties in the development process. The planning system should ensure that new development is safe and that flood plains are used for their natural purpose.

Flooding is one of the most frequently occurring and damaging natural disasters worldwide. Quantitative flood risk management (FRM) in the modern context demands statistically robust approaches (e.g. probabilistic) due to the need to deal with complex uncertainties. However, probabilistic estimates often involve ensemble 2D model runs resulting in large computational costs.Additionally, modern FRM necessitates the involvement of a broad range of stakeholders via co-design sessions. This makes it necessary for the flood models, at least at a simplified level, to be understood by and accessible to non-specialists. This study was undertaken to develop a flood modelling system that can provide rapid and sufficiently accurate estimates of flood risk within a methodology that is accessible to a wider range of stakeholders for a coastal city – Can Tho city, Mekong Delta, Vietnam. A web-based hydraulic tool, Inform, was developed based on a simplified 1D model for the entire Mekong Delta, flood hazard and damage maps, and estimated flood damages for the urban centre of Can Tho city (Ninh Kieu district), containing the must-have features of a co-design tool (e.g. inbuilt input library, flexible options, easy to use, quick results, user-friendly interface). Inform provides rapid flood risk assessments with quantitative information (e.g. flood levels, flood hazard and damage maps, estimated damages) required for co-designing efforts aimed at flood risk reduction for Ninh Kieu district in the future.