Strategic flood management ten ‘golden rules’ to guide a sound approach

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/>Strategic flood management: ten ‘golden rules’ to
guide a sound approach
Paul Sayers
ab
, Gerry Galloway
c
, Edmund Penning-Rowsell
de
, Li Yuanyuan
f
, Shen Fuxin
g
,
Chen Yiwei
h
, Wen Kang
i
, Tom Le Quesne
j
, Lei Wang
k
& Yuhui Guan
l
a

Sayers and Partners, 24a High Street, Watlington OX49 5PY, UK
b
Senior Visiting Fellow, Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford,
UK
c
Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering, Department of Civil and
Environmental Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. Email:
d
Professor of Geography, Flood Hazard Research Centre, Middlesex University, London,
UK
e
Distinguished Research Associate, Oxford University School of Geography and the
Environment, Oxford, UK. Email:
f
Vice-President, Professor and Senior Engineer of the General Institute of Water
Resources and Hydropower Planning and Design, Ministry of Water Resources, People's
Republic of China. Email:
g
Professor-level Senior Engineer in the General Institute of Water Resources and
Hydropower Planning and Design, Ministry of Water Resources, People's Republic of
China. Email:
h
Engineer in the General Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Planning and
Design, Ministry of Water Resources, People's Republic of China. Email:
i
Senior Engineer and Former Director of the Flood Control Research Division at the
Nanjing Hydraulic Research Institute, Ministry of Water Resources, People's Republic of
China. Email:
j
Senior Policy Advisor, WWF-UK, Godalming, UK. Email:

k
Freshwater Programme, WWF-China, Beijing, People's Republic of China. Email:
l
Freshwater Programme, WWF-China, Beijing, People's Republic of China. Email:
Published online: 03 Apr 2014.
To cite this article: Paul Sayers, Gerry Galloway, Edmund Penning-Rowsell, Li Yuanyuan, Shen Fuxin, Chen Yiwei, Wen
Kang, Tom Le Quesne, Lei Wang & Yuhui Guan (2014): Strategic flood management: ten ‘golden rules’ to guide a sound
approach, International Journal of River Basin Management, DOI: 10.1080/15715124.2014.902378
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Research paper
Strategic flood management: ten ‘golden rules’ to guide a sound approach
PAUL SAYERS, Sayers and Partners, 24a High Street, Watlington OX49 5PY, UK; Senior Visiting Fellow,
Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. Email: .uk
(author for correspondence)
GERRY GALLOWAY, Glenn L. Martin Institute Professor of Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental
Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. Email:

EDMUND PENNING-ROWSELL, Professor of Geography, Flood Hazard Research Centre, Middlesex University,
London, UK; Distinguished Research Associate, Oxford University School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford,
UK. Email:
LI YUANYUAN, Vice-President, Professor and Senior Engineer of the General Institute of Water Resources and
Hydropower Planning and Design, Ministry of Water Resources, People’s Republic of China. Email:
SHEN FUXIN, Professor-level Senior Engineer in the General Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower
Planning and Design, Ministry of Water Resources, People’s Republic of China. Email:
CHEN YIWEI, Engineer in the General Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Planning and Design, Ministry
of Water Resources, People’s Republic of China. Email:
WEN KANG, Senior Engineer and Former Director of the Flood Control Research Division at the Nanjing
Hydraulic Research Institute, Ministry of Water Resources, People’s Republic of China. Email:
TOM LE QUESNE, Senior Policy Advisor, WWF-UK, Godalming, UK. Email:
LEI WANG, Freshwater Programme, WWF-China, Beijing, People’s Republic of China. Email:
YUHUI GUAN, Freshwater Programme, WWF-China, Beijing, People’s Republic of China. Email: yhguan@
wwfchina.org
ABSTRACT
Over recent decades, remarkable progress in cultivating the concepts of flood risk management has taken place across countries as diverse as India,
China, Australia, the UK and the USA. This change highlights a risk management paradigm as potentially more complex than a more traditional
standard-based approach as it involves ‘whole systems’ and ‘whole-life’ thinking; yet this is also its main strength – paving the way for more integrated
and informed decision-making. Strategic flood management (SFM) uses a portfolio of responses to manage flood risks and promote opportunities eco-
system services. It recognizes the interrelationships between the actions taken and the contribution flood management provides to integrated river basin
and coastal zone planning. The paper results from an international collaborative effort for research and distils approaches to flood risk and water man-
agement in challenging large-scale and complex environments. The paper provides an overview of the emerging good practice in SFM, including (i) an
analysis of the flood events that have shaped changes in approach, (ii) the purpose and characteristics of modern SFM, (iii) the goals, objectives and
outcomes sought and (iv) the challenges associated with implementation (together with some of the common pitfalls and misconceptions). Our con-
clusions are encapsulated in a set of ‘golden rules’ that underpin sound SFM decision-making.
Keywords: River basin management; strategic flood risk management; principles; international case study; risk; opportunity
Received 9 January 2013. Accepted 5 March 2014.
ISSN 1571-5124 print/ISSN 1814-2060 online
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Intl. J. River Basin Management, 2014, 1–15
# 2014 International Association for Hydro-Environment Engineering and Research
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1 Introduction
Flooding issues are always context specific. As a result, all flood-
management plans differ in the specific combination of actions
they prescribe. A common understanding of what constitutes
‘sound’ strategic flood management (SFM), however, is now
starting to emerge. In particular, recent years have seen a
general convergence on the concepts of risk (Sayers et al.
2002) and increasingly the definition of flood risk management
(FRM) (Hall et al. 2003a, Samuels et al. 2010). These definitions
are further developed here to reflect ‘SFM’ as follows:
The process of data and information gathering, risk analysis and
evaluation, appraisal of options, and making, implementing, and
reviewing decisions to reduce, control, accept, or redistribute
flood risks. It is a continuous process of analysis, adjustment
and adaptation of policies and actions taken to reduce flood risk
(including modifying the probability of flooding and its severity
as well as the vulnerability and resilience of the receptors threa-
tened). Strategic Flood Management (SFM) takes place as part
of a wider approach of integrated basin or coastal planning and
focuses on reducing flood risks and promoting environmental,
societal and economic opportunities (both now and in the
longer term). It recognizes that risks can never be removed
entirely and that reducing risk is often at the expense of other
societal goals.
This definition is in contrast to a linear management model,
based upon set standards and a more certain view of the future

that is characteristic of traditional flood control decisions. It
urges flood managers to recognize that future conditions may
change (perhaps significantly) from those that exist today (Hall
and Solomatine 2008, Milly et al. 2008) and seeks to embed resi-
lience within the choices made (Sayers et al. 2012). It also under-
lines the need for a continuous process of monitoring and
intervention; reinvigorating the classical engineering control
loop of data acquisition, decision-making, intervention and
monitoring that now reappears in contemporary thinking about
adaptive management (Willows and Connell 2003, McGahey
and Sayers 2008, Sayers et al. 2012), as summarized in Figure 1.
Building upon practice and theory, this paper presents a brief
history of flood management and explores what sound flood
management might be, and the barriers to its implementation.
It concludes by suggesting a number of ‘golden rules’ that
underlie a sound strategic approach.
2 Flood management: from where have we come?
The earliest civilizations recognized the need to live alongside
floods, locating critical infrastructure on the highest land (as
seen through the medieval churches and cathedrals of
England), providing flood warnings to those that may be
flooded (common practice in ancient Egypt) and making flood-
sensitive land-use planning choices (as often practised by the
Romans). The requirement for protection and a belief in our
ability to control floods started to increasingly dominate attempts
to ‘deal with flooding’. Throughout the early and mid-decades of
the twentieth century, engineers sought to control flood flows and
defend areas from flooding. Typically, this was via the construc-
tion of extensive levees systems and ring dykes, diversion chan-
nels, dams and related structures. The perceived safety of the

defended floodplains attracted development (for example, in
New Orleans, London and Shanghai). Ecosystem became
increasingly starved of the sediments and space upon which
they rely (for example, in the Mississippi, Yangtze, Thames,
Rhine and Danube), which in turn has affected the ecosystems
services they provide.
Despite the structural protection and the high price in the loss
of ecosystem functions, flood losses continued to increase and
the need for change became increasingly apparent. In response,
through the latter part of the twentieth century, flood manage-
ment was recognized not only as an engineering pursuit but
also as a social endeavour (Baan and Klijn 2010). A new
approach was needed, one that could not only identify the
hazards and the consequences faced by society, but also assess
the relative significance of the risks faced and the concepts of
FRM (based upon a longer term, system-wide perspective)
started to emerge (Sayers et al. 2002, Evans et al. 2004a,
2004b, Schanze 2006, Link and Galloway 2009, Samuels et al.
2010). In more recent years, the concepts of risk management
have continued to evolve, in particular adopting an adaptive
approach to managing flood risks, which works with natural pro-
cesses, contributes positively to ecosystem services and forms
part of an integrated basin or coastal management, is now emer-
ging (WMO 2009, Sayers et al. 2013). This progression is
reflected in Figure 2.
Major flood events have often been pivotal in forcing and
shaping these changes. For example,
.
1917 and 1927 floods in the USA: At the dawn of the twentieth
century, the universally preferred strategy within developed

countries remained aimed at controlling floods locally.
Increases in population and the agricultural potential of flood-
plains continued to emphasize the need to ‘keep flood waters
away’ from both valuable farm land and urban areas. Flood
control was seen as a local or regional responsibility to be
run by governments or quasi-governmental bodies at those
levels. Flood control organizations within the same water-
sheds only loosely coordinated with each other. Their focus
was on protecting the area for which they were responsible
no matter what the impact might be on other locations. The
large floods in the USA in 1917 and 1927 were pivotal in chan-
ging this view.
The 1917 floods caused the US federal government to take
a greater interest in the Mississippi River and the Sacramento
River basins. It was recognized that local governance struc-
tures were simply unable to deal with such major basin-wide
floods and they sought federal fiscal support. In 1927, heavy
storms across the Midwest created large floods in the lower
Mississippi Valley that eventually breached a locally
2 Paul Sayers et al.
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Figure 1 SFM takes place as a continuous cycle of planning, acting, monitoring, reviewing and adapting.
Source: Sayers et al.(2013).
Figure 2 The evolution and development of flood management.
Source: Sayers et al.(2013).
Strategic flood management 3
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controlled levee system and put hundreds of thousands of
people out of their homes and off their lands for several
months. It was labelled a national tragedy and brought about

immediate attention from the national government. In 1928,
by act of Congress, the US federal government assumed
responsibility for construction and major maintenance of
flood control structures in the lower Mississippi Valley. The
‘levees only’ policy was closely examined and deemed to be
insufficient to deal with the challenge of major floods. A com-
prehensive plan for flood control was to include strengthening
of the levees, improvement of the channel to provide for
natural maintenance, cut-offs of river bends that were seen
to be delaying the flow of waters to the Gulf of Mexico, flood-
ways to serve as pressure relief valves during major events and
flood storage dams on the Mississippi River tributaries.
Although limited in the context of a risk management
approach, this was important progress in thinking that pro-
moted the need for a basin-scale infrastructure and coordi-
nation of action.
.
The 1947 and 1953 flood events in Europe: In March 1947,
river floods occurred across much of Europe. The flooding
was triggered by the rapid thaw of deep snow lying on a
frozen catchment after one of the coldest and snowiest
winters on record. The thaw was triggered by the arrival of a
succession of south-westerly depressions, each bringing sig-
nificant additional rainfall. Nearly all the main rivers in the
south, midlands and the northeast of England were in flood
with 30 out of 40 English counties impacted over a two-
week period. Tens of thousands of people were temporarily
displaced from their homes, and thousands of acres of crops
lost. Shortly after the 1947 fluvial floods, Europe experienc ed
devastating coastal floods in 1953 when a surge tide swept

south through the North Sea overtopping and breaching
many defences in England, the Netherlands and Belgium.
The storm was at its peak during the night and with little or
no warning. Flood waters breached defences and washed
away homes as people slept. An estimated 2400 people lost
their lives across Europe. On Canvey Island, at the mouth of
the Thames Estuary, 58 people lost their lives as the defences
breached. The net effect of these floods was to emphasize the
fragility of structural defences; yet, as throughout history, the
response was to increase the investment in levees, floodwalls,
floodways and other structures. The event did, however, high-
light the dramatic inadequacies in early warning systems and
initiated the UK’s national Storm Tide Warning Service – a
service that continues today.
.
Asia, 2004, Indian Ocean (Boxing Day) tsunami: An earth-
quake in the Indian Ocean on 26 December 2004 triggered a
series of devastating tsunamis along the coasts of most land-
masses bordering the Indian Ocean, killing over 230,000
people in 14 countries, and inundating coastal communities
with waves up to 30 m high. Indonesia was the hardest hit,
together with Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. This event pro-
vided two critical lessons for flood managers. The first was
that given even the shortest of lead times, if you are able to
warn people, they can react to reduce consequences if before
the event they had gained an understanding of the risk and
the appropriate actions to take. Prior to the Indian Tsunami,
neither early warning systems nor awareness campaigns
were in place. The second crucial lesson reflected the loss of
critical infrastructure during the event. Many hospitals, trans-

portation nodes and community centres were found be sited in
some of the most exposed locations. As a result critical func-
tions were lost at the time when they were most needed. Since
2004, considerable effort has been devoted to developing
sophisticated early warning systems and mapping the prob-
ability of flooding to inform spatial planning and emergency
response decisions. The success of these measures is yet to
be tested, but will, inevitably, be tested.
A summary of these events, together with other pivotal floods
over the past century, is given in Table 1.
Until very recently, although always appreciated at a local
scale and in academic terms, little attention was given to main-
taining the beneficial relationship between floods and ecosystem
services in actual flood-management planning. For example, in a
near complete ignorance of the ecological value of wetlands,
during the middle of the nineteenth century, the United States
Congress passed legislation that supported the draining of
wetland areas to provide room for agriculture and provided
funding for flood control activities. The Congress saw little
value in these periodically inundated areas. The lack of under-
standing of the natural and beneficial functions of floodplains
inherent in this legislation set the tone for the treatment of the
floodplain environment that would continue in the USA over
the next century and reflected practice across much of the
Western world at that time (as testified by the infrastructure
systems that remain, from the hidden rivers of London (Talling
2011) to the concrete lined trapezoidal channels characteristic
of many urban storm channels in the USA and elsewhere).
Settlement and development in the floodplain continue today
with many of the world’s most dynamic cities located in river

deltas and estuaries (Bangkok, Shanghai, New York, London,
New Orleans and many others). This places more and more
people and property in harm’s way and, as in the past, structural
measures continue to dominate (see, for example, the development
of major levees and sluices systems within the Taihu Basin, China
(Xie et al. 2012) or the ‘Stormwater Management And Road
Tunnel’ or ‘SMART Tunnel’ in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia). In
many developing countries, the reliance upon structural measures
reflects not only the nature of the significant flood issues faced but
also national policies that remain based on flood fighting and
control rather than flood management. Elsewhere, continued
development in the floodplain and reliance on single purpose
structural measures appear to reflect a lack of imagination (in
funding and design) rather than constraints within policy.
Acceptance of the concepts of risk and SFM are therefore not
enough and traditional flood defence or flood control paradigms
4 Paul Sayers et al.
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continue to persist, focused only upon reducing the probability of
flooding through extensive structural defence systems (such as
those in Rotterdam, Netherlands, New Orleans, USA, and on
the Huai River, China). The challenge now is to turn th e now
commonly accepted concepts of managing risks and promoting
opportunities into common flood-management practice.
Although there is no single roadmap to aid this transition, and
few comprehensive examples, many elements of good practice
are starting to emerge. For example, non-structural measures
are being increasingly recognized as vital components of a
broadly based approach to managing risk (Evans et al. 2004a,
2004b, US NRC 2012a) and various documents now reflect

this direction of travel in modern FRM, including:
.
Investment choices that are based on a consideration of risk
(US NRC 2000, Sayers et al. 2002).
.
Understanding the existing flood protection infrastructure;
where it is, its condition and its performance on demand
(Sayers et al. 2010).
.
Spatial planning that makes space for water (as embedded in
the Room for the River policies in the Netherlands and
Making Space for Water in England, Defra 2005) and controls
the number and type of new developments in flood-prone areas
(Burby and Dalton 1994).
(a) Dual purpose buildings that provide a safe haven and a
community facility such as a school or clinic (see, for
example, the Bangladesh Flood Action Plan) and multi-
purpose flood infrastructure (that contributes positively
to the urban setting, providing amenity and ecosystem ser-
vices in periods between floods, e.g. Maksimovic
´
et al.
2013).
.
Building codes and guides that promote flood resilience to
speed recovery post flood (e.g. CIRIA 2010, USA).
.
Reliable and meaningful forecasts (of all forms of flooding)
that help people prepare for flooding and, when necessary,
evacuate to predetermined safe havens along well-rehearsed

evacuation routes (Lumbroso et al. 2008).
Table 1 The influence of past flood events in shaping policy and practice
Flood event Impact on thinking, policy and/or practice
1917 Mississippi River and the Sacramento River basins, USA, and
1927 lower Mississippi, USA
Promoted the need for basin-scale infrastructure and co-ordination
1931 and the following decades, across three major rivers: the
Yellow, Yangtze and Huai, China
Promoted the need for basin-scale infrastructure and co-ordination
Major floods across the USA in 1936 (and to a lesser extent 1937
and 1951)
Reinforced the need for national responsibility
In March 1947, river floods occurred across much of Europe,
shortly after Europe experienced devastating coastal floods in
1953
Issues of food security, the need for clear roles and responsibilities and the
performance of warning systems
1991 and 1998 China A rethinking of flood issues: how to carry out disaster mitigation approaches
more efficiently and effectively
1993 and 1997 Mississippi, USA The 1993 Mississippi River flood was the US flood of the century in economic
terms. Following this event, new regulations were issued (1996) that
established the need to include uncertainty in the assessment and justification
for new flood control projects
1993, 1995, 1997 on the Rhine and 1998 in the UK Led to a demand for a new basin-wide and strategic approach to flood
management using a combination of structural and non-structural approaches
2004, Asia Tsunami (Boxing Day) A recognition of the vulnerability of coastal communities and need for better
warning, emergency planning and spatial planning to reduce risk
2005, New Orleans, USA A wider recognition that levees fail. A need to better understand levee
performance and the wide acceptance of the need for a risk management
approach and the communication of residual risks

2007 in Hull, UK Showed a need to consider all sources of flooding and spatial extent of events,
as pluvial, fluvial and tidal sources combine
2010, Pakistan; 2011, Japan; 2011, Mississippi A need to re-evaluate the use of floodplains, limitations of structural systems
and the need for improved resilience of critical infrastructure and prevent
secondary and tertiary risks developing
Source: Sayers et al.(2013).
Strategic flood management 5
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.
Awareness among flood-management-related agencies, pro-
fessional partners and the public to (i) enhance preparedness
through the provision of readily accessible informat ion on
flooding, including national flood mapping, available in the
England and Wales for fluvial and coastal flooding since the
mid-1990s (Environment Agency 2010) and increasingly
internationally (including most recently the major national
flood mapping initiative started in China, 2013) and (ii)
post-flood recovery (US NRC 2012a). Increasingly, there is
a move to map all sources of flooding with a coherent frame-
work and some progress has been made. For example, the
Environment Agency in England routinely provides infor-
mation on pluvial flooding.
.
Secure and affordable insurance arrangements to compensate
for flood losses (US NRC 2013).
3 The subtle dimensions of flood risk
Before exploring what we believe to be sound SFM in more
detail, it is first important to understand what is meant by risk
in the context of flood management. Typically, as many
authors have noted (US NRC 2000, Sayers et al. 2002), risk is

considered as having two components the chance (or probability)
of an event occurring and the impact (or consequence) associated
with that event.
A number of more subtle aspects underlie this simple under-
standing of risk and bridge the gap from simply assessing the risk
towards making risk-based decisions. The dimensions of risk
that paint this richer picture are shown in Figure 3 and include
the following four elements.
.
The probability of occurrence of inundation. This reflects
both the probability of the occurrence of the initiating event
(the source of the flood such as a single or sequence of rainfall
or a marine storms, etc.) and the probability that flood waters
reach a particular location in the floodplain (taking account
of the floodplain topography as well as the performance of
the intervening system of wetlands, channels, dams, levees,
floodwalls and other structures: the so-called pathway of the
flood water). Traditionally, the probability of inundation has
been simply (and typically incorrectly) considered the same
as the chance of the storm occurring. This is now changing.
Modern analysis methods that incorporate a probabilistic
description of the performance of intervening system (for
example, accounting for the chance of levee failure) are starting
to be embedded in practice (Hall et al. 2003b, Gouldby et al.
2010, Harris et al. 2010).
.
The consequences should flooding occur. This reflects both
the vulnerability of the receptors and the chance that a given
receptor will be exposed to the flood should it occur, where:
(a) Exposure – quantifies the number of properties or people,

area of habitats, etc. that may be exposed to a given flood
event should it occur. Understanding exposure is not,
however, as simple as it appears. For example, some recep-
tors, such as residential properties, can be considered
‘static’, whereas receptors such as people, cars and much
wildlife may be ‘dynamic’, and may or may not be
present at the time of a flood. The time of day the flood
occurs (rush hour; night time, etc.) and the actions taken
to evacuate areas will both influence exposure, consider-
ations that have for some time been addressed within a
probabilistic manner within the context of dam safety
(Hartford and Baecher 2004) but is only just starting to
transition to flood-management planning.
(b) Vulnerability – describes the potential for a given receptor
to experience harm should it be flooded during a particular
event. To further understand vulnerability, three support-
ing aspects need to be considered:
(i) Susceptibility – describes the propensity of a particular
receptor to experience harm during a given flood
Figure 3 The components of risk – to understand risk, the individual components of the risk must also be understood.
6 Paul Sayers et al.
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event. For example, a carpet may be damaged beyond
repair, a particular flora or fauna may be lost or
damaged and human death or injury.
(ii) Value – the value system used to express the degree of
harm to a receptor. For example, the damage may be
monetized on the basis of traditional economics
(Green 2003) or left in its native form (i.e. number of
people killed) in which case relative weights may be

provided nationally or, more progressively, deter-
mined in the context of a particular choice.
(iii) Resilience – describes the ability of the receptor that
has been harmed to recover from the flood event
and/or adapt to a change conditions that may have
occurred in a timely and efficient manner.
Understanding these multiple dimensions of risk is a prerequi-
site of making informed management choices.
Risks do not remain constant in time and all of their dimen-
sions are subject to change – either through exogenous pressures
(for example, climate change or socio-economic development
largely beyond the influence of the flood manager) or in response
to purposeful intervention (insurance regimes or indeed levees).
Some changes act to increase risk (for example, development in
the floodplain, loss of a communities flood memory, etc.) and
others to either:
.
Reduce risk – Either through reducing the probability of
flooding (e.g. through levee construction), the chance that
they will be exposed to the flood when it occurs (e.g.
through improved forecasting and warning) or by helping
them to recover post event (e.g. providing institutional
capacity to aid recovery).
(a) Transfer risk – Among individuals and organizations. For
example, insurance enables property owners to transfer
part of their risk to others. Risk may be directly transferred
to commercial (retail) insurance companies or to govern-
ments (through compensation schemes such as in China),
with the relative role of ‘free market’ and ‘state’ insurers
reflecting the national political and social context. Retail

insurers may then pass some of their aggregated risk to
global reinsurances via reinsurance contacts or offered to
investors via Catastrophe (CAT) Bonds. In some countries,
to help maintain a viable insurance market premiums may
be capped. In this case, the residual risk above the level
covered by the capped premium may be transferred to
CAT Pools that all insurers contribute to during periods
of below average claims (the basis of Flood Re to be
implemented in Eng land from 2015; Defra 2013) or under-
written by the national government (such as a National
Flood Insurance Program operated by FEMA in the
USA; US NRC 2013). Further general discussion of
these issues can be found in the following papers:
Raschky (2007), Kunreuther and Heal (2012), and Ermo-
lieva and Ermoliev (2013).
4 What then is the purpose of flood management?
The overarching motivation for flood management is to support
the broader aims of sustainable development (WCED 1987,UN
1992, US NRC 2012b). In particular, SFM can play a pivotal
position in promoting desired societal, environmental and econ-
omic outcomes. As such, and in contrast to the often narrowly
defined single objective nature of flood control paradigm, SFM
places an emphasis not only on reducing risk (to people, econ-
omics and the environment) but also on seeking opportunities
to working with natural processes and promoting multiple
benefits across a range of criteria (ecological, societal and econ-
omic). The trade-off between the resources required and benefits
accrued lies at the heart of investing limited resources effectively
and efficiently (Figure 4).
Figure 4 The primary goals of SFM.

Strategic flood management 7
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Supporting sustainability through a strategic approach to
flood management is therefore much more than simply maintain-
ing the long-term integrity of flood control structures: a common
misconception in many parts of the world. It also includes pro-
moting the long-term health of the associated ecosystems,
societies and economies. The manner in which these higher
level goals are translated into poli cy objectives shapes the
nature of the FRM that is delivered. In particular, the way in
which the following three issues are addressed in policy terms
and translated into SFM plans is crucial:
(1) Efficiency and fairness – Flooding, and actions taken to
manage floods, are not fair per se: the inherent natural
spatial inequality in the frequency and extent of flooding,
plus the legacy of past interventions and the coverage of
new ones being the cause. Every intervention to manage
flood risk inevitably tends to prioritize one group or location
over another, creating further inequality and ‘unfairness’. In
general, it is accepted that decision-makers must seek to
maximize the utility of an investment while ensuring that
it is distributed through a just process that also protects the
most vulnerable members of society. Achieving this in
reality raises a number of practical problems. Providing pro-
tection to one community but not another is inherently
unfair; providing a higher level of protection to one com-
pared to another is also unfair. Providing a common level
of protection to all would be, however, impractical, and
even if achievable would be grossly inefficient. The desire
to manage flood risk more fairly is best achieved through

the use of nationally consistent non-structural strategies
that are available to all (for example, better forecasting
and warning arrangements; improved building codes and
enhanced emergency response schemes). Such an approach
offers a greater contribution to fairness and vulnerability-
based social justice principles than engineered solutions
that, by their nature, deliver benefits to some but not
others (Table 2).
(2) Resilience and adaptive management – Both developed and
developing countries are seeking to promote communities
that are resilient and capable of adapting to unknown
future changes. Both are struggling to turn good theory
into practical action. As yet no blue print is available as to
what constitutes a resilient community, resilient design or
adaptive management. A common understanding is,
however, starting to emerge, recognizing resilience as an
emergent property of an individual, community or organiz-
ation that is promoted through (in part):
.
Promoting resilient infrastructure – Strategies based
upon a wide portfolio of structural and non-struc -
tural responses typically offer a degree of redun-
dancy that promotes greater resilience than relying
upon a single measure. Strategies, however, consist-
ing of individual response and structural measures
will continue to remain a legitimate component in
all but the lowest of risk areas (Evans et al.
2004a, 2004b). ‘Resilient design’ fosters an innova-
tive approach to the design, construction and oper-
ation of these (US National Institute of Building

Sciences, Bosher et al. 2007, NIBS n.d.). This can
help ensure that an acceptable level of performance
is maintained when exposed to events more severe
than anticipated (i.e. levees should not breach
when a notional design level has been exceeded
nor should their performance decay catastrophically
without warning).
Table 2 Socio-cultural justice – influence on FRM decisions
Justice principle
(type) Rule/criteria Meaning for FRM Potential implications for FRM
Equality
(procedural)
All citizens to be treated equally Every citizen should have the equal
opportunity to have their flood risk
managed
A greater focus on vulnerability reduction and state-
sponsored self-help adaptations that can be
provided for all – avoiding the inherent unfairness
in providing structural solutions that benefit the few
Maximin rule
(distributive)
Options chosen to be those that
favour the worst-off best
Resources should be targeted to the
most vulnerable
Need to identify, and target assistance at the most
vulnerable members of society, even when greater
economy returns can be found elsewhere
Maximize utility
(distributive)

Options chosen to those that
secure the greatest risk
reduction per unit of resource
input
Assistance provided to those members
of society to which the benefits
offer the greatest gain to society
Need to identify a set of measures that deliver the
greatest risk reduction for minimum resource –
likely to be associated with a broad range of
measures. The greatest risk reduction, for the most
vulnerable, most likely to be provided in the form
of non-structural responses, for example, state-
assisted self-help homeowner adaptations and
improved preparedness, etc. with more capitally
intensive structural solutions provided to areas of
high economic activity
8 Paul Sayers et al.
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.
The ability to recover failed infrastructure rapidly is
vital in supporting the timely return to normality.
This can be supported by good design choices that
avoid the need for complex planning, highly special-
ized skills or difficult to source materials when
making a repair.
.
A prerequisite to avoid the rapid escalation in the
severity of a flood event is to ensure critical infrastruc-
ture (e.g. energy, transport, communications and

emergency services) continues to function (a central
lesson from the Asian Tsunami as impacts escalated
as they cascaded through global supply chains,
Table 1). Identifying critical components within
these networks relies on an understanding of the inde-
pendences that exist, within and across sectors; an
understanding that is rapidly developing (Hall et al.
2013) but will demand coordinated action to main-
stream into practice.
.
Adopting adaptive management strategies – Devel-
oping and implementing adaptive strategies rely
upon creativity and innovation in (i) selecting
responses that do not foreclose future options or
unnecessarily constrain future choice, (ii) uses
responses that are effective under the widest set of
plausible all future scenarios, (iii) observes change
through targeted monitoring and continues to reas-
sess scenarios of the futures and (iv) appropriately
modifies policies, strategies and structure plans.
Maintaining future flexibility (to either raise a
defence or make a significant change in approach,
such as abandon a town) can cost additional
resources today (e.g. to strengthen foundations in
preparation for future crest raising). How best to
account for adaptive capac ity in options appraisals,
in a way that credibly takes account of future uncer-
tainties, remains an active area of research (Walsh
et al. 2013). This research has helped a number of
recent strategies, including the development of a

long-term FRM plan for the Thames Estuary
through London (so-called Thames Estuary 2100,
TE2100), which offers an early example of an adap-
tive strategy. TE2100 expresses possible actions as a
function of sea level rise (ranging from 0 to 4 m) in
the form of a decision tree. Progress through the
decision tree is conditional on sea level rise (as it
becomes better known) and any preceding decisions
made (Tarrant and Sayers 2012).
Delivering resilient infrastructure is, therefore, much more than
simply reducing the chance of damage through the provision
of ‘strong’ structures, and adaptive management is much
more than simply ‘wait and see’. Both are purposeful
approaches to strategy development and design that are inher-
ently risk based and importantly, seek to actively manage
uncertainty. Accepting the future as unknown has a number
of profound implications that are in contrast to the linear
model of strategy development, based upon a more certain
view of the future that is characteristic of traditional flood
control decisions (Table 3).
(3) Safeguarding and promoting ecosystem services – Ecosys-
tems provide critical provisioning, regulating and cultural
services (UN 2005). Without early consideration of how
best to safeguard and promote these flood-management
choices can have a devastating impact (e.g. as experienced
in the Danube basin leading to significant restoration
needs). ‘Soft path’ measures (such as land-use changes,
wetland storage, floodplain reconnection, etc.) and selec-
tive ‘hard path’ measures (such as bypass channels, con-
trolled storage, etc.) both offer opportunities to

simultaneously manage risk and promote ecosystem ser-
vices (Figure 5). This is a synergy all too often overlooked
and there are very few examples where this is actively
pursued. To make gains in safeguarding and promoting
Table 3 The recognition of uncertainty has a profound impact on strategy development
Stages of strategy development
Traditional (certain) model of strategy development
and decision-making
Adaptive (uncertain) model of strategy development and
decision-making
Deciding what is needed Pre-defined system of goals, objectives and desired
outcomes
Emerging pattern of goals, objectives and desired
outcomes
Defined set of activities and resource demands Flexible configuration of resources and priorities
Deciding how to achieve it Sequential process of planning, programming and
implementation
Continuous alignment of plans, programmes and
implementation activities with the changing world
Top-down strategy development Continuous reconciliation of the bottom-up initiatives
and top-down strategies
Understanding the external and
internal influences
Stable system of decision-making Changing decision processes and priorities
Predictable (deterministic) future change – climate,
demographics, deterioration, preferences, etc.
Unknown future change – climate, demographics,
deterioration, preferences, etc.
Source: Adapted from Hutter and McFadden (2009).
Strategic flood management 9

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ecosystems through flood management, a shift in emphasis
is required. Working with natural processes needs to
become a much more central consideration – a require-
ment acknowledged for example with the recent initiative
of the Environment Agency in England to promote the
concepts of working with natural processes in FRM
(Environment Agency 2012) and the recent adoption of
‘natural flood risk management’ into Scottish legislation
(SEPA 2012).
5 The characteristics of an SFM plan
Providing FRM that is fit for the multif arious purpo ses set o ut
above is not easy. The flood manager can no longer rely upon
eng ineered flood defences alo ne but must seek to integrate a
range of other measures and instruments into broader planning
to deliver the desired outcom es (Evans et al. 2004a, 2004b,
Opperman et al. 2013). SFM must be recognized as a continu-
ous process that adap ts to future realities and uses limited
resources of time, social effort, environmental capital and
money to deliver multiple benefits (Hall et al. 2003a,
Schanze 2006,Samuelset al. 2010). A strategic approach is,
therefore, disti nct from an engi neer ing design and a safety
standards paradigm, a difference we can recognize through
the characteristics of the plan that emerges. A strategic plan
will:
.
Be based upon an appropriate understanding of the whole-
system behaviour and societal goals and how these may
change over the longer term.
.

Use knowledge of risk and uncertainty to inform decisions.
.
Seek to implement a portfolio of measures and instruments
to manage risk (where the advantages of several FRM
measures are greater than the sum of the advantages of each
measure taken separately) (Table 4).
.
Operates as a continuous process that monitors, reviews and
adapts to the future as it becomes known. This approach is
distinct from the ‘implement and maintain’ philosophy in
the traditional flood defence approach.
These four characteristics of an SFM plan are summarized in
Figure 6.
6 Barriers to implementation
To be effective, flood-management strategies must be
implemented across a range of sectoral interests (flood risk,
water resources, development, energy and so on). This requires
national, regional and local governments to ensure multiple pol-
icies, regulations and programmes that they promote are appropri-
ately integrated, and that work done at one level of government, or
in one sector, is in harmony with associated activities in other
levels of government and sectors. As such ‘sound’ flood-
management planning requires a paradigm of governance that is
collaborative and blurs the distinction between the disciplines of
spatial, coastal zone, river basin and water resources planning as
well as flood defence engineering and environmental manage-
ment. This is not easy and achieving meaningful horizontal inte-
gration is a significant challenge; requiring flood managers who
are used to working within ‘regulatory instruments along vertical
paths of the administrative hierarchy’ to ‘cultivate more intensive

forms of horizontal integration’ (Moss 2004).
Equally, many well-intentioned plans have failed due to the
lack of clear roles and responsibilities (with associated budgetary
security) that bridge the gap across policy, planning and
Figure 5 Four characteristics of a healthy ecosystem and mutual opportunities with FRM.
10 Paul Sayers et al.
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implementation. Attempts to provide flood management in the
Iguassu River basin in Brazil, for example, has been hampered
by a lack of agreem ent among national, regional and local auth-
orities (Sayers et al. 2011). Similar examples exist within
Europe. For example, the policy in recent years within
England and Wales has been guided by the principle of
‘Making Space for Water’ (Defra 2005) and in the Netherlands,
‘Making Room for the River’ (Ministry of Infrast ructure and the
Environment 2006). The sentiment of these policy goals is clear
but often at odds with the local political and public response to a
flood event (e.g. for better protection from flooding), local
economic development choices (e.g. with continued develop-
ment in the floodplain for example) and insurance industry agree-
ments that focus on reducing the chance of flooding. Only where
it is easy to ‘make space/room’ is this actually done. Experience
in practice reinforces SFM as human endeavour and one that
requires clear leadership and collaboration to be successful.
7 Our ‘golden rules’ of SFM
Flood-management approaches have developed across the world
and, continue to evolve, in response to flood events; shifting
Table 4 A summary of measures and instruments that form the basis of a portfolio-based FRM strategy
Categories of action to manage
risk Example options

Reduce the chance of flooding Influencing the source of flood waters:
Through, for example, storage at or close to source (in-land water bodies and lagoons, reservoirs, groundwater
recharge, bogs, marshes, fens, sustainable urban drainage systems). Land management: forestry/floodplain
woodland, ponds and wetlands, field scrape/infiltration trench, soil management, riparian buffer strips, etc.
Influencing the pathway of flood waters:
Through, for example, morphological, debris and vegetation management, wetland and washland creation as well
as permanent and temporary structural defences, pumps and barriers
Reduce the potential
consequences should
flooding occur
Influencing the exposure of receptors:
Through, for example, development control and flood aware land-use planning; evacuation planning including use
of safe refuges and clear evacuation routes
Influencing the vulnerability of receptors:
Through, for example, raising awareness and preparedness of people and business, providing post-event recovery
systems (insurance and state help)
Mitigate climate and
demographic change
Influencing future climate change:
Through, as a minimum, use of low carbon use solutions. More ambitious flood risk managers will look for
solutions that sequestrate carbon through for example use of existing wetlands and restoration of damaged
wetlands to promote natural carbon capture and storage
Influencing demographic change:
Positively influencing population growth, integrating flood management with food and water resource security
Figure 6 The characteristics of sound SFM.
Strategic flood management 11
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priorities, increasing complexity in society and the demands
placed upon flood manager. We believe a small number of prin-
ciples are central to achieving sound SFM in practice. Our

‘golden rules’ are discussed further below. Of course they will
not be the last word on this matter, but we believe that these prin-
ciples identify necessary conditions for progress in this area,
although in many cases they may well not be sufficient. Our 10
‘golden rules’ are as follows:
(1) Accept that absolute protection is not possible and plan for
exceedance. There will always be a bigger flood. Engineer-
ing design standards, however high they are set, will be
exceeded. Structural protection, by definition, provides
protection against more frequent lower consequence
events but often provides limited protection from low-fre-
quency, high-consequence events. Engineered structures
may also fail (breach, fail to close, etc.). Non-structural
measures such as early warning systems or evacuation
plans taken to mitigate flood consequences are also suscep-
tible to failure. Through an acceptance of residual risks,
and that some degree of failure is almost inevitable, a
focus is placed upon building resilience into all aspects
of the planning process (urban development planning,
flood control structures, warning systems, building codes,
etc.) and ‘managing failure’ rather than ignoring it.
(2) Promote some flooding as desirable. Floodplains provide a
fertile area for agriculture and a variety of ecosystem goods
and services to society, including natural flood storage.
Making room for the river and the sea, utilizing the natural
ability of this space to accommodate flood waters and dissi-
pate energy, maintains vital ecosystems and reduces the
chance of flooding elsewhere. Maintaining connectivity of
flood flows, carrying sediments, to maintain habitats as
well as morphological protection in the form of deltas and

wetlands. Starving downstream areas of sediment can
cause significant reduction in the natural flood protection,
such as in the Yangtze delta (Yang et al. 2005) and the Mis-
sissippi delta.
(3) Base decisions on an understanding of risk and uncer-
tainty. As Voltaire proposed, the perfect is the enemy of
the good. The endless search for perfect knowledge
(data, information and models with which to conduct ana-
lyses) should not be a reason to delay the development of
options, making choices and implementing appropriate
flood-management activities. The SFM process is iterative
and adaptive, taking into account better information as it is
developed and not waiting for what is likely to be unattain-
able information before proceeding to the next step. The
uncertainty in the information should be explicit and
choices made that are robust to that uncertainty.
(4) Recognize that the future will be different from the past.
The world is changing. Climate change, demographic
change, changes in the condition of structures and other
societal changes mean that planning processes that focus
on a future that resembles the present are no longer
acceptable.
(5) Do not rely on a single measure, but implement a portfolio
of responses. SFM involves consideration of the widest
possible set of management actions. This includes imple-
menting policies and measures that act to reduce the prob-
ability and reduce the consequences of flooding (by
managing both exposure and vulnerability) while taking
the opportunity to promote ecosystem services, economics
and societies.

(6) Utilize limited resources efficiently and fairly to reduce
risk. The level of effort used in managing floods and
their consequences must be related to the nature of risks
and not universal or generalized engineering standards of
protection. Management strategies should be developed
following consideration of the efficiency of mitigation
measures, not only in terms of the risk reduction achieved
and resources required, but also their fairness and ability to
maximize ecosystem enhancement opportunities.
(7) Be clear on responsibilities for governance and action. The
role of governments, businesses, and other organizations
including the affected communities and individuals must
be clearly defined. Each level of government, from national
through provincial and to the local, has a specific role to
play in risk manag ement. Sharing of both responsibility
for and fiscal support of FRM activities ensures the full par-
ticipation of leadership at all levels in the development of a
common understanding of the processes being followed in
the floodplain-management activity. Effective FRM also
requires that interventions be carried out on a watershed
or catchment basis so that upstream –downstream, cross-
river conflicts may be avoided and/or mitigated. Pro-
cedures must also be developed to provide continuous col-
laboration among agencies with parallel or interlocking
responsibilities.
(8) Communicate risk and uncertainty effectively and widely.
Decision-makers and the public alike must understand
the risks that they face; frequently they do not. Too often,
after a flood, those affected claim that no-one had told
them of the risk they faced. Tools, such as risk maps,

social networking and educational processes, should be
used to facilitate an appropriate understanding of risk.
Effective communication enables both communities and
individuals to understand their responsibilities in helping
to manag e risk, and why specific measures are necessary.
Communicating the risk after a catastrophe is too late.
(9) Promote stakeholder participation in the decision-making
process. The people at risk from flooding, and society as
a whole, have a legitimate interest in the decisions that
are being taken on their behalf. Thus, effective FRM
involves engagement with stakeholders throughout the
decision-making processes and relies upon proper pro-
cesses and resources being in place to manage that engage-
ment. Success, therefore, relies upon stakeholders playing
12 Paul Sayers et al.
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an active role in developing, delivering and, increasingly,
contributing to the operation of FRM measures in a way
that promotes ‘living with flood s’ rather than ‘fighting’
against them.
(10) Reflect local context and integrate with other planning
processes. The details of any strategy will be different;
reflecting the specific risks that must be faced. The strat-
egy should not be related to arbitrary levels of protection
that should be achieved or artificially constrained in
options it considers. The development of any strategy
will therefore be location specific, but the framework of
analysis and evaluation should be adaptable to all
situations.
Acknowledgements

This paper summarizes the findings of collaborative research between
the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), the General Institute of
Water Resources and Hydropower Planning and Design (GIWP), Min-
istry of Water Resources, People’s Republic of China and a number of
leading international experts from the UK, South Africa, Australia and
the USA. The contributions of these organizations are acknowledged.
The project was supported by the HSBC Climate Partnership, via a
grant to WWF-UK and designed to research and disseminate modern
approaches to water management in challenging environments, and
provide new insights into strategic planning and risk management of
water resources. This paper focuses on strategic FRM and is one in a
series of three covering (i) river basin planning, (ii) basin water allo-
cation and (iii) strategic FRM. An extended discussion of the issues
raised in this paper is provided in Sayers et al.(2013) with the regional
case studies which were commissioned in order to inform these publi-
cations available on request. The authors are also grateful to the
reviewers used by the Journal of River Basin Management for their chal-
lenge and patience.
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