Integrated water resources management and flood risk management: Opportunities and challenges in developing countries

Abstract

Flood events and flood-related impacts have been increasing across the globe; in particular, riparian communities in developing countries are the worst sufferers due to insufficient preparedness. Conventional flood risk management (FRM) measures are usually structural measures, and they have limited potential to reduce impacts, whereas integrated water resources management (IWRM) is a multi-dimensional and holistic approach for FRM. It deals with enhancing the adaptive capacity of a community, and it recommends a variety of social, economic, technical, knowledge-related, institutional, and cultural measures. This chapter reviews the status and journey of adoption of IWRM for FRM in countries across the world such as the United States, European Union, India, Bangladesh, and representative African countries. Based on the review, it can be observed that IWRM has been accepted and adopted by countries across the globe for FRM. However, due to diverse levels of financial capability, technical skill sets, governance structure, cross-sectoral engagements, and stakeholder participation, the countries are at diverse levels of IWRM adoption.