Natural flood management
In recent years, disastrous floods have become increasingly common, in part due to man-made changes to rivers, floodplains and catchments.
Integrated river basin management planning must promote flood management that works with natural processes rather than against them, using a combination of structural, preventative and non-structural measures. Non-structural measures include making space for rivers so that they can flood naturally, and creating or restoring natural retention areas to absorb water and consequently reduce flood peaks.
An integrated approach to flood management requires a combination of the following:
- A combination of structural, preventative and non-structural measures e.g. planning laws to keep infrastructure away from the floodplain, early warning systems and making space for water.
- Implementation of better land-use planning and land management practices to prevent rapid run-off from rural and urban areas.
- Maximising natural vegetation cover, maintaining or restoring existing vegetation and forest cover, particularly in mountainous areas.
- Restoring floodplains and wetlands, including reconnecting rivers with their floodplains and reducing the intensity of land drainage, and making more space for rivers and water.
- Creating designated low risk flood storage areas with extensive grassland or alluvial forest cover.
- Develop strong legislation as a back up to incentivised voluntary approaches to flood risk reduction.
Details of policies to achieve ecologically sustainable flood management in Europe can be found in WWF livingwithfloodswwfpolicybriefingfinal.pdf
WWF livingwithfloodswwfpolicybriefingfinal.pdf
Contains the following examples:
Danube-Morava river (http://www.ramsar.org/cop7/cop7181cs20.doc
Tagliamento River, Italy and river Clyde Scotland.