From Flood Control to Integrated Water Resource Management: Lessons for the Gulf Coast from Flooding in Other Places in the Last Sixty YearsThe loss of life and devastation in the Gulf coast region of the United States following the hurricane season of 2005 has led to considerable debate about what should be done and not done in recovering from the damage and mitigating the consequences of future floods. this document reports the experiences of four major floods since 1948 (two in the United States, one in the Netherlands, and one in China), to draw lessons for the Gulf coast restoration effort. The authors conclude that (1) attending to history leads to mitigating the potential damage of floods even when major floods are few and far between; (2) the critical concept of integrated water resource management policy -- particularly its implication that flood damage control includes conceding land to the water from time to time -- is necessary but may be difficult to accept; (3) delineating roles and responsibilities clearly in advance produces better outcomes; and (4) out of disaster can come improvements to the social and physical infrastructure that go beyond flood protection. |
Contents
Chapter One Introduction | 1 |
Chapter Two Four Recent Historical Examples | 7 |
Chapter Three Synthesis of the Lessons from the Case Studies | 31 |
Chapter Four Lessons for the Aftermath of Katrina | 37 |
| 41 | |
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adequate affected areas agencies Anticipation billion catastrophe Changnon China Columbia River communities Compensation construction Corps of Engineers CWRC cycle of restoration damage Deltawerken detection disaster Dutch enclosing dike environmental evacuation event example federal FEMA flood control flood management flood occurred flood protection flood-prone areas floodplain Galloway Gulf Coast region Gulf of Mexico Gulf States Policy Hurricane Katrina hydrological IFMRC implementing lessons improve infrastructure integrated water resource IWRM Lake Itasca land Learning and implementing levees Maben Ministry of Water Mississippi flood mitigation monitoring National Flood Insurance Netherlands NFIP nonstructural measures Oregon Orleans overwhelmed planning polders political population Portland preparation prevention RAND Gulf rebuild relocated response risk River basin river flood safety social status quo structural and nonstructural threats tion U.S. Army U.S. Geological Survey upper Mississippi River Vanport Vanport flood water management water resource management Yangtze Flood Yangtze River Zeeland