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Introduction
Climate economics, or economics of climate change, studies natural processes which may be dangerous for Earth, its population, ecology, and infrastructure, such as floods. With the sea level and Earth’s temperature rising, more and more land areas are at risk of being flooded. To cope with the challenges, specific policies should be implemented to guide local communities in preventing deluges by using technologies and mitigating their consequences. At first, a few existing policies in various countries will be reviewed; then, a list of stakeholders connected with the issue of flood mitigation will be presented. After that, a list of necessary data will be elucidated and a policy recommendation list will be presented, with a detailed analysis of each point.
Existing Policies
Various policies exist in different countries where the flooding risk is actual: they include mitigation plans, climate adaptation strategies, and grants. Flood consequences are detrimental: 2.5 billion of people are flood-affected and 0.16 million died since the 1990s (Hu et al., 2018). Financial losses are considerable: since 2000 floods in the U.S. alone caused damage on almost $1 trillion (Lightbody, 2019). In 2013, annual loss in China due to flood consequences was $15 billion (Jiang, Zevenbergen and Ma, 2018).
- There is a number of flood management plans in the United Kingdom for rivers where risks are known, such as the Anglian River basin (GOV.UK, 2021).
- The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has a series of books where social, economic, environmental, and legal aspects of flood mitigation are presented (WMO, 2016).
- Grants exist in several states of the United States, providing money for flood mitigation (Lightbody, 2019; National Conference of State Legislatures, 2019; Nebraska Department of Natural Resources (DNR), 2022).
- In Italy, a national climate adaptation strategy is present, which focuses on improving communication between stakeholders to mitigate calamities (Vitale and Meijerink, 2021).
- In China, modern flood management strategies are based on the development of flood-resilient cities by using approaches such as LIDs and sponge cities (Jiang, Zevenbergen and Ma, 2018).
One can see that the problem of floods is widely recognized on a global level by governments and international organizations worldwide. However, local work is required, as people still need to prepare well for possible hazards in many regions and large flaws in communication are present.
Flood Mitigation and Prevention: Stakeholders
Stakeholders are those responsible for the calamity’s mitigation and prevention; Table 1 shows a short summary of stakeholders engaged in the flood management.
Table 1. Stakeholders which have responsibilities and interests connected with flood risks and management
Local Non-Profits and Communities
It is vital to ensure that local people and their communities are aware of flooding risks, as it guarantees they will have the chance to prevent the calamity and mitigate its consequences. In many parts of Earth, such as the U.S., Switzerland, China, and Italy, the main problem is the insufficient preparation and involvement of local people, who, therefore, cannot cope with the calamity (Glaus et al., 2020; Horney et al., 2016; Vitale and Meijerink, 2021). Thus, it is necessary for local communities to educate people on how to behave in case of flooding according to the mitigation plan and share information about floods.
Commercial Organizations
Businesses and companies that work in a local area may be interested in financing the initiatives to prevent calamities. As they earn money on this territory, they want their business resources to be protected from flooding. They can create funds that help flood victims, which is the case for some U.S. states, such as Maryland and Indiana (Lightbody, 2019). Such a situation enables people to help each other, especially those who can afford it, creating a feeling of mutual help. Commercials will more likely to invest in climate economics facilities if it will be profitable: if more money will be saved than would be destroyed by floods otherwise.
Governments
Local and state governments are responsible for policymaking and mitigation plan issuing. Their responsibilities include flood control and mitigation of consequences, and they are interested in doing this well. They can help to obtain governmental aid and grants, which help prevent and mitigate calamities (Lightbody, 2019; National Conference of State Legislatures, 2019). In this way, initiatives connected with flood risk management should be presented to local political leaders, as they can help to realize them.
Data Necessary for Flood Risk Management
Specific data should be collected to ensure that all mentioned stages of strategy implementation will be fulfilled. There are websites, such as the Global Flood Database, where information about floods can be found: river parameters, floods or tropical storms probabilities, and other parameters (Global Flood Database, 2022). One can also find data on governmental websites, where previous flooding incidents are described, along with mitigation plans and grants (GOV.UK, 2021; Nebraska Department of Natural Resources (DNR), 2022). Two questions, which would local communities ask, are whether their people will learn how they can follow the flood mitigation plan, and whether they have enough facilities to get rid of flood water (Jiang, Zevenbergen and Ma, 2018). Five types of data can be specified: about rivers, coasts, and other flood sources, climate change, tropical storms, losses due to floods, and dams and other buildings that are used against deluges.
- Information about rivers and coasts where floods are possible includes data about the water level, its changes during the last years, and fluctuations during a single year. It enables the local community to understand what to expect and how many costs should be allocated for mitigation and prevention.
- Information about climate change: temperature and sea level changes in a particular region. It helps in the prediction of how the flood probability will change over time.
- Information about hurricanes, tornadoes, and other global calamities that may cause floods (Hu et al., 2018).
- Financial losses caused by floods are useful to evaluate how much money can be saved by flood prevention (Jiang, Zevenbergen and Ma, 2018; Lightbody, 2019).
- Information about dams, drainage, and pumping stations includes their costs and installation, which should be calculated for each case individually.
Policy Implementation Recommendation
Information Collection
Before one can do anything to prevent and mitigate floods, one should first find as much data as possible: a list of necessary data can be found in a previous section. People often feel a false sense of safety when they do not know about the risk or believe it is small and, thus, can be neglected (Glaus et al., 2020). It is high stress for people to think constantly about the possibility of a deluge, and they choose not to bother about it (Vitale and Meijerink, 2021). It is crucial to gather actual information about flood frequency in the locality and its tendency to increase or decrease to explain to people what is happening in reality and what to do with it.
Discussion and Communication
To create and implement a good policy, it should consider all stakeholders’ interests: in this case, they all will help to implement it. Lack of integration between various stakeholders is why communities are vulnerable to floods (Morrison, Westbrook, and Noble, 2017). While technical advances are still considered the most important for calamity prevention and mitigation, social and psychological factors are no less important (Driessen et al., 2016). After a successful communication is established, three primary tasks are left: mitigation plan creation, flood control facilities planning, and fundraising.
Creating Mitigation Plan
A mitigation plan is an action list that prescribes what should be done in case of a calamity, such as flooding. It includes stakeholders involved in mitigation, goals that should be reached, and various conditions under which the objective should be executed (Horney et al., 2016). Plan quality may be measured by evaluating how local people are prepared for action and how precise coordination and communication between stakeholders, all points of evaluation one can see on Table 2. It is important to prepare communities for possible floods and give them all necessary training, as it will make them more aware and help in casualties preventing.
Table 2. A list of points for mitigation plan efficiency evaluation
Flood Control Facilities
Floods can be prevented by building specific systems in places where floodings are possible. Those systems include drainage systems, pumping stations, and dams, which prevent water from flowing to populated or usable lands. Calculations are necessary at this stage, as they enable us to understand which materials are required (Li et al., 2016). Low-impact development (LID) techniques, which include small landscape modifications and artificial lake creation, are also valuable for reducing flood-imposed damage, as they enable water to flow away (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2019). They have proven successful, reducing the amount of water to 30-40% in some cases, such as in Nanjing, China, where floods on the river Yangtze are frequent (Pour et al., 2020). Complexes such as sponge cities, with extensive facilities for water absorption and driving away, are even more efficient, and China invested more than $7 billion to build them in its pilot cities (Jiang, Zevenbergen and Ma, 2018). Therefore, various facilities may be built to prevent flooding, and calculations are required for building them. Figure 1 shows the efficient scheme of their development based on their most and least actual functions.
Fundraising
All flood prevention and mitigation strategies, such as building and installation and rescue team education, require money to be realized. Floods are one of the costliest calamities, as they may destroy the whole town’s property and kill many people (Vitale and Meijerink, 2021). In several U.S. states, there are grants for flood hazard mitigation, but most of them have no such policies (National Conference of State Legislatures, 2019). Cost-benefit analysis should be done for all case individually: to do this, one needs to calculate possible harm from flood and compare it with the cost of flood facilitating equipment and mitigation plans development. Is can be done based on the cost of all property in the area, number of people, and the probability of floods based on statistics (Morrison, Westbrook and Noble, 2017). Then, the cost of all mitigation and prevention actions and buildings should be calculated; the benefit is the reduction of mentioned harm. The efficiency may be evaluated based on the difference between these costs and harm. Local businesses are parties interested in successful mitigation, and thus, they can invest money in those activities.
Conclusion
Global warming poses many significant challenges for humanity, and the increased flooding risk is one of them. Sea level constantly rises due to global warming and ice melting, and some lowland territories may be totally inundated. People living there should either be evacuated or protected from floods, and specific policies may help with that. To create it, first, it is necessary to elucidate the stakeholders responsible for the situation: local communities and non-profits, commercial organizations, and governments. Then, all the required information should be gathered: about flood frequency, climate change, other calamities’ probabilities, and technologies such as dams and drainage systems. Successful communication between all stakeholders should be initiated to issue and implement a good policy. After that, three tasks need to be completed: a mitigation plan creation and implementation, planning how to build necessary flood control facilities, and fundraising costs necessary for that.
Reference List
Driessen, P.P.J., Hegger, D.L.T., Bakker, M.H.N., van Rijswick, H.F.M.W. and Kundzewicz, Z.W. (2016). Toward more resilient flood risk governance. Ecology and Society, 21(4).
Glaus, A., Mosimann, M., Röthlisberger, V. and Ingold, K. (2020). How flood risks shape policies: Flood exposure and risk perception in Swiss municipalities. Regional Environmental Change, 20(4).
Global Flood Database. (2022). Global Flood Database. [online] Web.
GOV.UK. (2021). Flood risk management plans (FRMPs): 2015 to 2021. [online] Web.
Horney, J., Nguyen, M., Salvesen, D., Dwyer, C., Cooper, J. and Berke, P. (2016). Assessing the Quality of Rural Hazard Mitigation Plans in the Southeastern United States. Journal of Planning Education and Research, 37(1), pp.56–65.
Hu, P., Zhang, Q., Shi, P., Chen, B. and Fang, J. (2018). Flood-induced mortality across the globe: Spatiotemporal pattern and influencing factors. Science of The Total Environment, 643, pp.171–182.
Jiang, Y., Zevenbergen, C. and Ma, Y. (2018). Urban pluvial flooding and stormwater management: A contemporary review of China’s challenges and ‘sponge cities’ strategy. Environmental Science & Policy, 80, pp.132–143.
Li, C., Cheng, X., Li, N., Du, X., Yu, Q. and Kan, G. (2016). A Framework for Flood Risk Analysis and Benefit Assessment of Flood Control Measures in Urban Areas. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, [online] 13(8), p.787.
Lightbody, L. (2019). Mitigation Matters: Policy Solutions to Reduce Local Flood Risk. [online] pew.org. Web.
Morrison, A., Westbrook, C.J. and Noble, B.F. (2017). A review of the flood risk management governance and resilience literature. Journal of Flood Risk Management, 11(3).
National Conference of State Legislatures. (2019). Flood Mitigation. [online] Web.
Nebraska Department of Natural Resources (NeDNR). (2022). Flood Mitigation | Department of Natural Resources. [online] Web.
Pour, S.H., Wahab, A.K.A., Shahid, S., Asaduzzaman, M. and Dewan, A. (2020). Low impact development techniques to mitigate the impacts of climate-change-induced urban floods: Current trends, issues and challenges. Sustainable Cities and Society, 62, p.102373.
Rubinato, M., Nichols, A., Peng, Y., Zhang, J., Lashford, C., Cai, Y., Lin, P. and Tait, S. (2019). Urban and river flooding: Comparison of flood risk management approaches in the UK and China and an assessment of future knowledge needs. Water Science and Engineering, 12(4).
Vitale, C. and Meijerink, S. (2021). Flood risk policies in Italy: A longitudinal institutional analysis of continuity and change. International Journal of Water Resources Development, pp.1–25.
WMO (2016). Flood Management Policy Series. [online] World Meteorological Organization. Web.
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