Floods may be welcome a nuisance or a
disaster depending on
where you live and how you make a living and how unusual
the flood.
Interventions in rivers and their flood plains through embankments and
diversions whether intended for that purpose or not, alter speed, debris flows
and which areas get inundated. They may drastically shift the risk of damage,
morbidity and death. Communities which are well informed are prepared ahead of
time may cope much better with floods than those that are not or which do not
have the capacity, skills or resources to respond. Early warning systems may
reach some groups much earlier and with more accurate
information than others.
Social and physical factors jointly determine vulnerabilities to flood and the
risk to flood related disasters.
This
makes decisions about how to reduce the risk of disaster as well as how to
manage regular seasonal floods and droughts, less straightforward than a purely
technical exercise in monitoring water levels, modeling flood potential and
planning based on this information. Institution and
decision making processes
shape how risks are distributed. For this reason the transparency and
accountability of decision making about flood management in important.
Negotiation and compensation procedures need to be fair not just economically
efficient.