Toward more flood resilience Hegger, Dries L. T.; Driessen, Peter P. J.; Wiering, Mark ...
Ecology and society,
12/2016, Volume:
21, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
European countries face increasing flood risks because of urbanization, increase of exposure and damage potential, and the effects of climate change. In literature and in practice, it is argued that ...a diversification of strategies for flood risk management (FRM), including flood risk prevention (through proactive spatial planning), flood defense, flood risk mitigation, flood preparation, and flood recovery, makes countries more flood resilient. Although this thesis is plausible, it should still be empirically scrutinized. We aim to do this. Drawing on existing literature we operationalize the notion of “flood resilience” into three capacities: capacity to resist; capacity to absorb and recover; and capacity to transform and adapt. Based on findings from the EU FP7 project STAR-FLOOD, we explore the degree of diversification of FRM strategies and related flood risk governance arrangements at the national level in Belgium, England, France, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden, as well as these countries’ achievement in terms of the three capacities. We found that the Netherlands and to a lesser extent Belgium have a strong capacity to resist, France a strong capacity to absorb and recover, and especially England a high capacity to transform and adapt. Having a diverse portfolio of FRM strategies in place may be conducive to high achievements related to the capacities to absorb/recover and to transform and adapt. Hence, we conclude that diversification of FRM strategies contributes to resilience. However, the diversification thesis should be nuanced in the sense that there are different ways to be resilient. First, the three capacities imply different rationales and normative starting points for flood risk governance, the choice between which is inherently political. Second, we found trade-offs between the three capacities, e.g., being resistant seems to lower the possibility to be absorbent. Third, to explain countries’ achievements in terms of resilience, the strategies’ feasibility in specific physical circumstances and their fit in existing institutional contexts (appropriateness), as well as the establishment of links between strategies, through bridging mechanisms, have also been shown to be crucial factors. We provide much needed reflection on the implications of this diagnosis for governments, private parties, and citizens who want to increase flood resilience.
Toward more resilient flood risk governance Driessen, Peter P. J.; Hegger, Dries L. T.; Bakker, Marloes H. N. ...
Ecology and society,
12/2016, Volume:
21, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Countries all over the world face increasing flood risks because of urbanization and the effects of climate change. In Europe, flooding is the most common of all natural disasters and accounts for ...the largest number of casualties and highest amount of economic damage. The current scientific debate on how urban agglomerations can be made more resilient to these flood risks includes a discussion on how a diversification, coordination, and alignment of flood risk management strategies (FRMSs), including flood risk prevention through proactive spatial planning, flood defense, flood risk mitigation, flood preparation, and flood recovery, can contribute to flood resilience. Although effective implementation of FRMSs can be considered a necessary precondition for resilience, efficient and legitimate flood risk governance can enhance this societal resilience to flooding. Governance and legal research has the potential to provide crucial insights into the debate on how to improve resilience. Yet the social sciences have only looked into this issue in a fragmented manner, often without a comparative scope. This special feature addresses this knowledge gap by focusing on the scope and workings of FRMSs, but also on cross-cutting topics such as uncertainties, distributional effects, solidarity, knowledge management, and citizen participation. The papers included in this feature are written by both policy analysts and legal scholars. The above-mentioned issues are thus approached via a multidisciplinary perspective. All papers convincingly show that one-size-fits-all solutions for appropriate and resilient flood risk governance arrangements do not exist. Governance arrangements should be tailored to the existing physical, socio-cultural, and institutional context. This requires an open and transparent debate between scientists and practitioners on the normative starting point of flood risk governance, a clear division of responsibilities, the establishment of connectivity between actors, levels, and sectors through bridging mechanisms, and adequate knowledge infrastructures, both nationally and internationally.
While transboundary flood events have become more frequent on a global scale the past two decades, they appear to be overlooked in the international river basin (IRB) cooperation and management ...arena. The present study therefore combined geopolitical measures with biophysical and socioeconomic variables in an attempt to identify the IRBs with adequate institutional capacity for management of transboundary floods. It also classified basins that would possibly benefit from enlarging the institutional capacity related to transboundary floods. Of the 279 known IRBs, only 78 were represented by a transboundary rivers institution. A mere eight of the 153 identified institutions had transboundary flooding listed as an issue in their mandate. Overall, 43 basins, where transboundary floods were frequent during the period 1985-2005, had no institutional capacity for IRBs. The average death and displacement tolls were found to be lower in the 37 basins with institutional capacity, even though these basins experienced twice as much transboundary floods with significant higher magnitudes than those in basins without institutional capacity. Overall, the results suggested that institutional capacity plays a role in the reduction of flood-related casualties and affected individuals. River basins such as the Juba-Shibeli, Han, Kura-Araks, Ma, Maritsa, Po, Coco/Segovia, Grijalva, Artibonite, Changuinola, Coatan Achute, and Orinoco experienced more than one transboundary river flood, but have not yet set up any institutions for such events, or signed any appropriate treaties focused on floods. These basins were therefore recommended to consider focusing attention on this apparent lack of institutional capacity when it comes to managing transboundary flood events.
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Using global data, this article examines the nexus of transboundary flood events and future social vulnerability. Which international river basins are forecast to experience an increase in both ...hydrological variability and population in the future, but currently lack institutional provisions to deal with these shared events? Concentrations of elevated risk are found in several basins in Central Asia, Central America and Central Africa. The article ends by highlighting transboundary basins that merit further investigation and possibly additional institution building to reduce urban flood risk.
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Flood risk mitigation in Europe Fournier, Marie; Larrue, Corinne; Alexander, Meghan ...
Ecology and society,
12/2016, Volume:
21, Issue:
4
Journal Article
Peer reviewed
Open access
Flood mitigation is a strategy that is growing in importance across Europe. This growth corresponds with an increasing emphasis on the need to learn to live with floods and make space for water. ...Flood mitigation measures aim at reducing the likelihood and magnitude of flooding and complement flood defenses. They are being put in place through the implementation of actions that accommodate (rather than resist) water, such as natural flood management or adapted housing. The strategy has gained momentum over the past 20 years in an effort to improve the sustainability of flood risk management (FRM) and facilitate the diversification of FRM in the pursuit of societal resilience to flooding. Simultaneously, it is increasingly argued that adaptive forms of governance are best placed to address the uncertainty and complexity associated with social-ecological systems responding to environmental challenges, such as flooding. However, there have been few attempts to examine the extent to which current flood risk governance, and flood mitigation specifically, reflect these aspired forms of adaptive governance. Drawing from EU research into flood risk governance, conducted within the STAR-FLOOD project, we examine the governance of flood mitigation in six European countries: Belgium, England, France, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden. Using in-depth policy and legal analysis, as well as interviews with key actors, the governance and implementation of flood mitigation in these countries is evaluated from the normative viewpoint of whether, and to what extent, it can be characterized as adaptive governance. We identify five criteria of adaptive governance based on a comprehensive literature review and apply these to each country to determine the “distance” between current governance arrangements and adaptive governance. In conclusion, the flood mitigation strategy provides various opportunities for actors to further pursue forms of adaptive governance. The extent to which the mitigation strategy is capable of doing so varies across countries, however, and its role in stimulating adaptive governance was found to be strongest in Belgium and England.
The objectives of this study were (1) to quantify river floods shared by more than one country, that is, transboundary river floods and (2) to grasp more fully the degree of vulnerability of people ...to such events on a global, international river basin (IRB) and country level. To these ends, publicly available data were combined to identify such events and the resultant losses of life, flood-related affected individuals and financial damage statistics were related to national levels of development. It was determined that in the period 1985-2005, some 175 of the 1,760 river floods were transboundary, but globally accounted for 32% of all casualties and almost 60% of all affected individuals, illustrating the massive impact of shared floods. This database of transboundary floods was then merged with socio-economic and biophysical data, enabling analyses that revealed the degree of vulnerability of people to transboundary floods from a global to a country level. Selecting one country, continent or IRB most vulnerable to transboundary floods proofed to be unfeasible since the answer heavily depended upon the specific definition of vulnerability, illustrating the complexity of this phenomenon. However, together, the results significantly increased our current knowledge of shared floods which could aid policy-makers in identifying and evaluating potential vulnerability to transboundary river floods.
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: While transboundary flood events have become more frequent on a global scale the past two decades, they appear to be overlooked in the international river basin (IRB) cooperation and management ...arena. The present study therefore combined geopolitical measures with biophysical and socioeconomic variables in an attempt to identify the IRBs with adequate institutional capacity for management of transboundary floods. It also classified basins that would possibly benefit from enlarging the institutional capacity related to transboundary floods. Of the 279 known IRBs, only 78 were represented by a transboundary rivers institution. A mere eight of the 153 identified institutions had transboundary flooding listed as an issue in their mandate. Overall, 43 basins, where transboundary floods were frequent during the period 1985‐2005, had no institutional capacity for IRBs. The average death and displacement tolls were found to be lower in the 37 basins with institutional capacity, even though these basins experienced twice as much transboundary floods with significant higher magnitudes than those in basins without institutional capacity. Overall, the results suggested that institutional capacity plays a role in the reduction of flood‐related casualties and affected individuals. River basins such as the Juba‐Shibeli, Han, Kura‐Araks, Ma, Maritsa, Po, Coco/Segovia, Grijalva, Artibonite, Changuinola, Coatan Achute, and Orinoco experienced more than one transboundary river flood, but have not yet set up any institutions for such events, or signed any appropriate treaties focused on floods. These basins were therefore recommended to consider focusing attention on this apparent lack of institutional capacity when it comes to managing transboundary flood events.
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BFBNIB, FZAB, GIS, IJS, KILJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, SBCE, SBMB, UL, UM, UPUK
European countries, especially urban areas, face increasing flood risks due to urbanization, increase of exposure and damage potential, and the effects of climate change. In literature and in ...practice, it is argued that a diversification of Flood Risk Management Strategies (FRMSs) makes countries more flood resilient. The latter requires innovations in existing Flood Risk Governance Arrangements, development of new arrangements and the coordination of these arrangements, but it also requires these arrangements to be tailored to their physical and institutional context. Within the EU FP7 project STAR-FLOOD (2012-2016), a comparative analysis and evaluation of flood risk governance in Belgium, England, France, The Netherlands, Poland and Sweden has been conducted. The project identified at least seven key issues that are relevant for all researched countries (and probably also beyond). These key issues deal with the topics of (i) diversifying Flood Risk Management Strategies (ii) establishing connectivity between actors, levels and sectors through what we coin “bridging mechanisms” (iii) achieving coproduction between public and private actors; (iv) improving fragmented and often non-enforceable rule systems; (v) optimising available resources for FRM; (vi) operationalising the notion of “diversification of FRM strategies” in a country-specific way; (vii) follow general design principles for improving FRM that are sufficiently tailored to local circumstances. Drawing on all project deliverables, this paper will briefly review each key issue, discuss salient similarities and differences between the countries and point at ways forward.
The reactivity of both coupling partners—the glycosyl donor and acceptor—is decisive for the outcome of a glycosylation reaction, in terms of both yield and stereoselectivity. Where the reactivity of ...glycosyl donors is well understood and can be controlled through manipulation of the functional/protecting‐group pattern, the reactivity of glycosyl acceptor alcohols is poorly understood. We here present an operationally simple system to gauge glycosyl acceptor reactivity, which employs two conformationally locked donors with stereoselectivity that critically depends on the reactivity of the nucleophile. A wide array of acceptors was screened and their structure–reactivity/stereoselectivity relationships established. By systematically varying the protecting groups, the reactivity of glycosyl acceptors can be adjusted to attain stereoselective cis‐glucosylations.
The sweet spot: An operationally simple system to gauge glycosyl acceptor reactivity is presented that employs two conformationally locked donors with stereoselectivity that critically depends on the reactivity of the acceptor. The structure–reactivity/stereoselectivity relationships of a wide array of acceptors were established. The reactivity of glycosyl acceptors can be adjusted by systematically varying the protecting groups to attain stereoselective cis‐glucosylations.
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The stereoselectivity of glycosylation … … reactions can depend critically on the reactivity of the acceptor glycoside (the nucleophile in the reaction). In their Communication on page 8240 ff., J. ...D. Codée et al. report a facile system that maps the relationship between glycosyl acceptor reactivity and glycosylation stereoselectivity. Tuning the reactivity of the nucleophile through the judicious choice of protecting groups can provide stereoselective 1,2‐cis‐glycosylations.
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