Key research findings from the 1st ERA-Net CRUE Funding Initiative on Flood Risk Management Research

A new report published by the flooding ERA-Net (CRUE) synthesised research commissioned by CRUE that could further support European Member States in the implementation of the EU Floods Directive.

Quelle: Cordis

This report primarily addresses key research findings related to Risk Assessment and Risk Management: Effectiveness and Efficiency of Non-structural Flood Risk Management Measures. The report has two main aims: to provide evidence for improving flood management policy and strategies, and to give practitioners a high quality basis for improving mitigation strategies on Flood Risk Management.

Due to climate change and the concentration of larger populations, plus more infrastructure and greater economic activity in flood risk areas, the potential impacts of future flood events are likely to be significantly greater than in the past. There is a risk that sustainable development in Europe will be affected unless sufficient action is taken to tackle these challenges. Non-structural measures (NSMs), as part of a modern Integrated Flood Risk Management (FRM) approach, are critical to water management, land use control, financial relief, and loss reduction. They comprise issues such as flood forecasting and warning, spatial planning regulation, flood insurance and public flood awareness and risk perception.

Given the importance NSMs play in modern flood risk management, it was surprising to see that very little evidence exists on the efficiency and effectiveness of NSMs. This makes it difficult to assess the appropriateness of NSM approaches and impedes decisions on the ideal mix of structural or non-structural measures determined at a strategic level.

In order to tackle these challenges, six partners of ERA-Net CRUE (Austria, England, France, Germany, Scotland, and Spain) agreed in 2005 to collaborate in CRUE’s 1st Research Funding Initiative, exploring the potential of non-structural measures in a modern flood risk management approach. Seven transnational projects have been funded by this initiative and were designed to understand each Member States’ approach to the use and appraisal of non-structural measures, explore what is successful, and what can be improved in terms of efficiency and effectiveness of such measures.

Given the close links to the EU Floods Directive and tight timescales for implementation on the one hand, and the success of the 1st CRUE Funding Initiative on the other hand, CRUE published a second call for proposals in summer 2008. This call focused on two critical emerging needs ‘Flood event management’ and ‘Public perception and risk awareness’. It is anticipated that the research projects from this Funding Initiative will commence in summer 2009.