New Water Policy and Practice Volume 1, Number 2 - Spring 2015 | Page 64

New Water Policy and Practice

2007). The Flood Directive required that by 2011 each Member State of the EU had
identified areas subject to potential significant flood risks, and has these flood hazard
and flood risks mapped by 2013, from which Flood Risk Management Plans (FRMP)
must be developed by the end of 2015, subject to review every six years afterwards.

While the Flood Directive provides Member States with the decision-making
ability on the types of measures used in managing floods, the objective of the Directive
is to promote cooperation in the development and implementation of transboundary
FRMPs. This comes under the Flood Directive’s principle of solidarity in that flood
protection measures should not compromise the ability of other, upstream or
downstream, regions or Member States to achieve the level of protection the regions/
Member States themselves consider to be appropriate. Regarding the types of measures
taken to protect lives and infrastructure from floods, the Flood Directive recommends
that taking both structural and non-structural measures reduces the likelihood of
flood and/or the impact of floods in a specific location.

Overall, enhancing the EU’s resilience to natural hazards as well as its capacity
to anticipate, prepare, and respond to risks, especially transboundary risks, is also
one of the objectives of the Europe 2020 strategy: competitiveness and sustainability
depend on effective disaster risk management which helps avoid losses and strengthens
resilience to increasing global shocks and threats (European Commission 2014).

Case Study: Integrated Flood Risk Management in the Rhine River
basin

I

n the Rhine River basin, one of the causes of increased flood threats is that more
than 85% of the former natural flood plains of the Rhine have been cut off as a
result of straightening, correction, and embankment. This development has been
in tandem with rapid sealing of soil and soil compaction, which accelerates flood
waves. At the same time, population density has increased with intensive land use
in natural floodplains, increasing the vulnerability of people and infrastructure to
flooding. However, it has not been possible to stop this development.

In 1998, the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine (ICPR)
implemented the Action Plan on Floods, which aims to protect humans and their assets
against floods while improving the ecology of the Rhine and its flood plains (ICPR
2003). Specifically, the Action Plan aims to reduce flood damage risks to humans and
infrastructure by 25% by 2020. In 2001, the ICPR adopted Rhine 2020, the Program on
the Sustainable Development of the Rhine that seeks to improve the Rhine ecosystem.
The Action Plan on Floods was incorporated into Rhine 2020 with one of the goals
being the improvement of flood prevention and protection. Specifically, Rhine 2020
aims to reduce, in the lowlands of the Rhine, risks of flood damage by 25% by 2020
compared with 1995 and reduce, downstream of Baden-Baden, extreme flood peaks
by up to 70 cm compared with 1995 levels. Regarding structural goals along the Rhine
River and in the Rhine basin, the Rhine 2020 strategy aims to increase water retention
facilities and maintain and strengthen dikes. Non-structural goals include increasing
63