Non-structural Flood Protection and Sustainability

Abstract In this article, flood protection is considered in the context of sustainability. On the one hand, floods destroy human heritage and jeopardize sustainable development, which can be defined as “non-decreasing quality of life.” On the other hand, following the most common interpretation of sustainable development, one should not choose flood protection policies that could be rated by future generations as inappropriate options of flood defense. This is how several large structural flood defenses are often viewed. Non-structural measures are in better agreement with the spirit of sustainable development, being more reversible, commonly acceptable, and environment-friendly. Among such measures are source control (watershed/landscape structure management), laws and regulations (including zoning), economic instruments, an efficient flood forecast-warning system, a system of flood risk assessment, awareness raising, flood-related data bases, etc. As flood safety cannot be reached in most vulnerable areas with the help of structural means only, further flood risk reduction via non-structural measures is usually indispensable, and a site-specific mix of structural and non-structural measures seems to be a proper solution. Since sustainability requires thinking about the future generations, the climate change issue becomes important. Non-structural measures lend themselves well to application in climate change adaptation strategies. As uncertainty in the assessment of climate change impacts is high, flexibility of adaptation strategies is particularly advantageous.