Flood risk management is one of the most complex tasks for the countries and it should be ensured by the disaster management teams that there are efficient techniques to overcome such natural disaster. Improper flood risk management can lead to loss of lives as well as loss of biodiversity and other environmental issues that should be taken into consideration by the government bodies. There should be effective flood management strategies in the countries especially in the flood prone cities/areas. This will not only help in saving lives and preventing other associated issues but also ensure that the society and the economy of the country is preserved and restored in cases of unforeseen situations. There are different kind of natural disasters flood being one of the most common type. Floods are mainly prevalent in coastal areas or it may also occur due to excessive rainfall for prolonged periods.
There are different kind of environmental issues of flooding. There are direct consequences on the crops and livestock and it has effect on their health and wellbeing. Large quantitate of water can enter into the farmlands and destroy crops and cause natural ranching. They can also cause the destruction of agricultural habitats. For instance in the 2011 Queensland floods thousands of species of animals vanished due to the large volumes of water destroying their natural habitats. Most importantly, the livestock are often unable to relocate themselves to a higher level above the ground because of which they are unable to save themselves from being washed away by the floodwaters. Sometimes they are forced to wait in the polluted water in sub merged or half-dead conditions unless rescued. Floods on a large scale also have the capability of completely wiping away wildlife as well as biodiversity in the affected area, which in turn can reduce flora, fauna and other levels of biodiversity in the affected region. It also affects and pollutes the natural water table and misbalances the water levels of the natural water resources such as ponds and rivers. It adversely affects the ecosystems of the environment. Another concern that is being faced by the present legislations, which do not have much provision of creating or ensuring a flood free infrastructure, is sedimentation and riverbank erosion. Sediments from the different floods act as clogging materials that can clog the riverbeds, ponds and lakes and can reduce the storage capacity of the water reservoirs in the urban regions as well as villages. The deposits form the flood waters are left behind in the places through which the water travels and the entire route of the floodwater pollutes the areas through which it pass. Sedimentation can degrade the quality of water and in extreme cases can cause pollution of fresh water resources from municipal, industrial as well as recreational water supplies from the government. Floodwater also carried large amounts of debris such as trees, stones and pieces of houses such as wood etc. They also carry bacteria, chemicals, and pesticides and are major sources of diseases such as jaundice and cholera. These diseases can affect not only the natural ecosystem but also can prove fatal for the human at the times of flood. Sedimentation as well as turbidity results in the formation and growth of algae. It aids in the formation of can result in the growth of phytoplankton’s which in turn degrades all sources of fresh water and drinking water at the times of flood. It affects the environment in multiple ways.
Under the existing laws and policies it there is no flood mitigation dams and the floodwater is allowed to be directed anywhere. The system is extremely unorganized, because of which the impact is maximum. There is a lack of a proper disaster recovery plan. The government has not built flood modification measures such as leeves and waterways in the present system because of which the floodwater management remains extremely unorganized. The present legislation has no provision of security measures such as creating landfills and building flood proof homes for the citizens at a safe level so that even in cases of extreme floods the houses still remain way above the flood water levels.
Figure 1: Existing system and proposed system of flood management.
The new policies and legislations aims to mitigate the environmental as well as scientific issues such as loss of flora and fauna. The water table balance will also be maintained using suitable scientific techniques such as building dams and underground water table management using information systems and artificial intelligence water monitoring systems.
Under the new flood management strategy, it should include a combination of flood response as well as property modification techniques to reduce the impacts of the flood on the communities and bring it down to an acceptable level. It will also help to manage the residual risk in a right way.
Local councils can make effective use of the available planning instruments in order to ensure long-term and sustainable development of a flood prone area. They can seek approvals as well as financial support from the government as well as the citizens residing in the area in order to build a health and safe environment to live in.
Figure 2: Components of a flood risk
Property building regulations should be taken into consideration by the builders at the time of constructing newer properties and they should be designed ain such architecture that there is provision for evacuating people as well as animals in and around the affected areas at times of floods. Care should also be taken while designing the infrastructures and ensuring they are flood proof. Local builders and contractors should be engaged in order to build structures such as flood mitigation dams, leeves as well as waterways at government permitted sites.
Some of the policies that the local council can incorporate are helping to create Zonings by restricting the available space for development and placing control, which are conditions for the development process to be carried out. Scientific methods will be used to determine the minimum landfill as well as floor levels for the buildings in order to reduce the frequency of people and properties being exposed to unforeseen flood conditions. Such a systematic flood management can help in ensuring that there are effective flood control measures even at unforeseen hazards. Some of them are stated below:
Figure 3: Zonings.
In addition to Zonings that is the new strategy to be incorporated by the disaster management teams, there should be adequate modification provided for the existing infrastructures as well as properties some of which are described below:
In the United Kingdom flood risk is not managed by a single body or organization but is managed by different bodies and share the responsibilities across the places such as Scotland, Northern Ireland as well as Wales, which are extremely flood prone. The administration in these places share the joint responsibilities of flood management in these areas.
All policies, whether new or old will be revised and prepared with many parts of the government such as cabinet office (for emergencies), Treasury, the Cabinet Office and the Department for Communities and Local Government for land-use as well as planning policy. The Risk Assessment Management Authorities (RMAs) will then deliver these policies, which can be further categorized into the following bodies.
The strategy will need the approvals from the governments and interaction with these departments in order to be properly tested and implemented. This will not only ensure a safer place to live in but also ensure that the people are more educated about the natural disaster and the calamities that can affect them. More awareness about the precautionary measures can be informed to the children so that at times of flood they know how to respond instead of panicking. Proper implementation of this new strategy that will incorporate all the above-discussed strategies will ensure that the houses will be built using safer standards and they are flood resistant especially in the flood prone areas of United Kingdom.
Recent literature and research on environmental management have suggested that the main key to manage complex floods and their consequences is building of a strong resilience. This can help in reducing the vulnerability arising from uncertain conditions as well as unexpected changes. Governance procedures of flood risk management or FRM has been derived greatly from large number of resistance techniques. Based on the current as well as earlier researches on FRM, researches are now being carried out to come up with more efficient flood management governance techniques within United Kingdom. Recent studies have shown that over 258 articles on governance as well as their associated strategies of resilience and techniques of adaptation have been identified. The main research themes on the governance that have emerged help in addressing the key issues of flood management. However much of the research still needs to be carried out in the field of the socio-ecological effects of flood management. Overall, research that is in support of the floor risk management governance techniques needs much more integration, and the mitigating techniques should be studied more in details using effective data analysis tools.
EIA is derived from a European Directive, which is the EC Directive 85/337/EEC that was amended, by the EC Directive 97/11/EC as well as Article 3 of the Directive 2003/35/EC. The flood control activities under the EIA include:
SEA helps in ensuring that the necessary considerations are taken for the environment in the process of developing flood risk management plans. It helps the decision-makers such as government officials to take better as well as more sustainable environmental decisions while framing guidelines and procedures. SEA is derived from the European Directive (2001/42/EC). It has the registration number of SI 2004 No. 1633 and SI No. 1656 for Wales.
References:
Smith, H.M et al, Rethinking The Relationship Between Flood Risk Perception And Flood Management. Science Of The Total Environment, 478, (2014)
Marfai, M.A et al, Governance Of Flood Risk Management In A Time Of Climate Change: The Cases Of Jakarta And Rotterdam (2018)
Rosner, A Risk?Based Approach To Flood Management Decisions In A Nonstationary World. Water Resources Research, 50(3), (2014)
Fan, Qin and Meri Davlasheridze, “Flood Risk, Flood Mitigation, And Location Choice: Evaluating The National Flood Insurance Program’s Community Rating System” (2015) 36(6) Risk Analysis
Szollosi-Nagy, Andras and Chris Zevenbergen, Urban Flood Management
Marsalek, Jiri and Gheorghe Stancalie, Transboundary Floods (Springer, 2006)
Balmforth, David, “Journal Of Flood Risk Management” (2012) 5(2) Journal of Flood Risk Management
Juarez-Lucas, Andrea M. et al, “Flood Risk-Benefit Assessment To Support Management Of Flood-Prone Lands” [2018] Journal of Flood Risk Management
Schanze, Jochen, “Dealing With Future Change In Flood Risk Management” (2012) 5(1) Journal of Flood Risk Management
Shah, M.A.R., A. Rahman and S.H. Chowdhury, “Challenges For Achieving Sustainable Flood Risk Management” (2015) 11 Journal of Flood Risk Management
Cassel, M.A. and M. Hinsberger, “Flood Partnerships: A Participatory Approach To Develop And Implement The Flood Risk Management Plans” (2013) 10(2) Journal of Flood Risk Management
Flood Warning (Emergency Management Australia, 1999)
Warner, Jeroen Frank, Making Space For The River (IWA Publishing, 2014)
Takara, Kaoru, “Journal Of Flood Risk Management” (2010) 3(3) Journal of Flood Risk Management
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