Improving the active involvement of stakeholders and the public in flood risk management – tools of an involvement strategy and case study results from Austria, Germany and Italy

Abstract

Abstract. The EU Flood Risk Management Directive 2007/60/EC aims at an active involvement of interested parties in the setting up of flood risk management plans and thus calls for more governance-related decision-making. This requirement has two perspectives. On the one hand, there is (1) the question of how decision-makers can improve the quality of their governance process. On the other hand, there is (2) the question of how the public shall be appropriately informed and involved. These questions were the centre of the ERA-Net CRUE-funded project IMRA (integrative flood risk governance approach for improvement of risk awareness) that aimed at an optimisation of the flood risk management process by increasing procedural efficiency with an explicit involvement strategy. To reach this goal, the IMRA project partners developed two new approaches that were implemented in three case study areas for the first time in flood risk management:1. risk governance assessment tool: An indicator-based benchmarking and monitoring tool was used to evaluate the performance of a flood risk management system in regard to ideal risk governance principles;2. social milieu approach: The concept of social milieus was used to gain a picture of the people living in the case study regions to learn more about their lifestyles, attitudes and values and to use this knowledge to plan custom-made information and participation activities for the broad public.This paper presents basic elements and the application of two innovative approaches as a part of an "involvement strategy" that aims at the active involvement of all interested parties (stakeholders) for assessing, reviewing and updating flood risk management plans, as formulated in the EU Flood Risk Management Directive 2007/60/EC.

Recurrent Governance Challenges in the Implementation and Alignment of Flood Risk Management Strategies: a Review

“…Second, leadership ask for a facilitating program office involving different competencies as well as a set of management instruments for gathering data and information, assessing resource levels and needs, and allocating resources for use (Medema et al 2008), developing learning capacities, organizing single and double loop learning by monitoring and evaluation of policy experiences (Van den Brink et al 2011), setting up teams for community building and progress evaluation (Fleischhauer et al 2012.…”

Prescriptions for adaptive comanagement: the case of flood management in the German Rhine basin

“…This form of participation can informally be extended, for example by hearings, round tables, and related communication tools to further include the public in the decisionmaking process (Heintz et al 2012, Kaiser 2012. The exact purpose, scope, and organization of informal, public participation is still under debate (Mostert et al 2007, Fleischhauer et al 2012. Frequently, this leads the local stakeholders and the affected public to feel that they are just informed at a (too) late stage and as a matter of compliance with legal obligations (Frijters andLeentvaart 2003, Kampa et al 2003).…”

“…The policies in the Rhine basin provided a basis for a unified flood management strategy throughout Germany, including the development of flood management plans, rules for spatial development, and instruments for coordination. Thus, experimentation needs to continue, as a sort of umbrella function to further develop and improve the application of the prescriptions, to test hypotheses, and produce the necessary knowledge to, for example, empower participation by investigating how the decision makers can improve the quality of their governance process; how the public will be informed and involved down to the local level (Neef 2009, Fleischhauer et al 2012); or to promote transboundary cooperation by studying existing path dependency of the entrenched administrative and institutional structures and the necessary adaptation in response to changed awareness and understanding of future challenges (Nees 2009, Thiel 2015.…”

Flood risk management in Italy: challenges and opportunities for the implementation of the EU Floods Directive (2007/60/EC)

“…The project tested two novel methodological approaches -social milieus for a tailor-made participation campaign (aiming at the broad public) and a new indicator-based model for the assessment of institutional stakeholder cooperation (Fleischhauer et al, 2012). The survey on risk perception and management carried out in the context of the project underlined that the communication actions of the project had positive effects.…”