Flood management in transition: A systems-based review of traditional practices, modern approaches, and future strategic directions

Flooding remains the most frequent and damaging natural hazard worldwide, accounting for 35–40% of weather‑related disasters and affecting nearly two billion people. Changing global conditions—including population dynamics, rapid land‑use change, and climate variability and change—continue to intensify flood frequency, magnitude, and impacts. Traditional flood management, dominant before the year 2000, relied heavily on structural flood‑defence measures and deterministic, stationary modelling approaches. These methods assumed engineered structures could fully control flooding and that historical hydrologic records adequately represent future conditions. Since 2000, a major shift has occurred toward integrated flood management (IFM) and risk‑based approaches embedded within broader water‑resource governance frameworks. Advances in computational power, high‑resolution terrain and rainfall data, remote sensing, and hybrid hydrologic–hydraulic modelling have enabled more realistic, dynamic, and spatially detailed flood analyses. Current practice increasingly incorporates non‑structural measures, nature-based solutions, probabilistic modelling, climate‑change considerations, and stakeholder participation. This article is an expert narrative review of contemporary flood‑management practice, synthesizing hydrologic, hydraulic, regulatory, and governance developments from approximately 2000 to the present. It draws on peer‑reviewed literature, international guidelines, and materials from the International Conferences on Flood Management (ICFM), a key source for global policy evolution and integrated‑flood‑management concepts. The paper identifies persistent challenges—including data gaps, aging infrastructure, non‑stationarity, and governance fragmentation—and outlines three strategic directions for future flood management: adaptive protection, resilience‑centered risk reduction, and systems‑based governance. The review highlights the need for integrated, flexible, and forward‑looking approaches that can address accelerating hydrologic variability and socio‑economic exposure.