Last week I was lucky enough to attend the 3rd FloodRisk 2016 European Conference of Flood Risk Management in Lyon, France in order to present research from the IDEA project at Oxford Brookes University which I am currently working on. This research relates to the improvement of data management as a means to improving damage assessment, cost-benefit analysis of flood risk management strategies and compensation processes. My presentation focused on the data requirements for forensic disaster investigations, a relatively new and innovative approach to understanding the drivers of damage in disasters. Here I present some observations about the conference.
Prevailing themes
The Role of Community
The first day focused mainly on the role that communities do
and can play in flood risk management.
- · Erik Wagner from the Dutch Waterboard spoke about a lack of awareness in Holland among the people who have never experienced a flood in their lifetime and the challenges associated with raising awareness of flooding.
- · Mario Mendiondo from the Brazilian Ministry of Science spoke about the benefits of public participation in urban planning as a means to engage.
- · Lindsey McEwan from the University of West of England spoke about knowledge integration and the capturing of data through community archives.
- · Jonathan Simm from HR Walingford presented about Arnstein’s ladder of participation and claims they have data on community groups who manage flood risk and promotes the building of community capacities to manage initiatives.
- · Others spoke of digital storytelling as a way of capturing memories of flooding
Data and Modelling
Another overarching theme of presentations focused on the
need for improved datasets and data sources in order to improve damage
assessment and prediction. This is very much in line with the work of the IDEA
project.
Infrastructure and Escalation of Risk
Discussions around the importance of damage to
infrastructure is an emerging theme that seems to be growing. This is coming from
an understanding that preventing damage to buildings is relatively straightforward
with engineering solutions and zoning policies tackling the physical risk to
properties. It is now being recognised that the more complex and potentially
disastrous impacts can come from damage to the increasingly complex and
interconnected infrastructure networks and the interactions they have with social
and economic activities. This is borne out by the recent release of the
Government’s National Flood resilience Report which outlines the need to better
understand risk and protect local infrastructure.
Community Data Gathering
Linking the previous two areas of interest was a specific
focus on how community sourcing of data and help to improve understandings of
flooding and thus improve flood risk modelling and damage assessment.
- · Jerome Le Coz spoke about citizen science and crowd sourced data giving examples of Flood Patrol in the Phillipines and using image analysis techniques in order to understand water speeds and depths etc.
- · Olivier Piotte from Vigicrues presented about his work on collecting data about high water marks through crowd sourced data which feed into French FRM strategy.
- · Teresa Fenn from Risk Policy Analysts spoke about her work in assessing the damage caused by flooding in the UK in 2013. Her findings displayed high uncertainty and difficulty in disaggregating flood damage from other damages such as economic.
- · Lehmann from the US Army Copr of Engineers gave a presentation about a system he developed which allows for quick and dirty estimations of damage in order to see if further investigation is necessary. Based on ECAM (Economic Consequence Assessment Model).
Risk and Urban Planning
An area of interest that came out of a session and which a
lot of people seemed passionate about is the intersection of urbanity and risk
including flooding. It was clear that a gap exists between planning policy and
the understanding of risk possibly as a result of the inability of flood risk
experts to communicate the importance and impacts of flooding.
Observations
Attendance
The event was attended by academics, policy makers and
industry representatives from around Europe and even from countries as far away
as Brazil and Peru. As the conference was in France, there was a large French contingent
to the detriment of the conference as many presentations had a focus on similar
events and similar approaches to Flood Risk Management (FRM) strategies. A
strong British, German, Dutch and Italian contingent was notable also with few
representatives from countries such as Poland, one of the countries most
affected by flooding in Europe.
Lack of Solutions
It seems that the academic world is still grappling with how
best to improve our ability to predict flood events and the damage caused yet
there seems to be a lack of hard solutions to the risk and the damage. There
was an overriding bias towards improving data, modelling and mapping and how
these can be implemented in emergency situations and in recovery. There was
very little in terms of structural measures and perhaps this is a reflection of
the direction in which flood risk management is moving. Where hard solutions
were discussed, the discussion was about sustainable alternative large scale
solutions and how best to evaluate their performance.
Where to go from here
Sustainable alternatives for flood property-level protection
With the trend for sustainable solutions to flood risk
management mostly at river catchment and community level, perhaps there are
alternatives for sustainable, building level protection. This could be a very
interesting field that can involve a value added element for developers that
incentivises better flood risk measures, a solution that was raised as a
possible alternative to harder solutions that tend to not be valued by house
buyers.
Interaction of urban planning and flood risk
It was generally agreed that flood risk and risk in general
is quite far down the list of priorities for urban planners. One of the biggest
challenges is in communicating the need for better risk planning and
potentially targeting developers as a means of improving the uptake of better
solutions. This could be done through incentivising flood management measure
through the improvement of sustainable drainage solutions that also add to the
living quality of developments.
Issues of density and risk reduction are also an area that could
be explored. Our understanding of how
density and risk of flooding and other risks interact is changing with our
changing infrastructure and connectedness. Perhaps collaboration with the
planning department could be a strategic move.
Research group/centre
Perhaps a research group that focuses on an innovative area
of flood risk could be a good idea. The area of urban planning and flood risk or
risk in general is one that could be innovative. This could be initiated between
academic institutes or commercial groups.
Expand horizons from Property level solutions
With growing recognition that flood risk needs to be managed
at various scales, it could be beneficial to offer a holistic view on flood
risk and then market other solutions as fitting within this view.
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