Evaluations of flood risk governance in terms of resilience, efficiency and legitimacy

Abstract

Diversification of flood risk management strategies can be seen as a necessary but not sufficient precondition for enhancing societal resilience to floods. This chapter identifies three relevant capacities of resilience: the capacity to resist flooding, the capacity to absorb/recover when a flood event occurs and the capacity to adapt to future risks and transform deliberately. These are to be seen as different views on desired outcomes for flood risk governance and have been found to be to some extent mutually exclusive. Resilience is closely linked to the notion of appropriateness: desired outcomes in terms of resilience should be considered in the light of physical circumstances and existing institutional and social contexts. The presence of links between strategies is crucial for countries’ achievements in all three capacities. The chapter goes on to review two other evaluation criteria for flood risk governance: efficiency and legitimacy. Efforts to improve resource efficiency by increased application of (societal) Cost Benefit Analyses are underway in different countries, albeit to a different extent. These CBAs were found to contribute to resource efficiency, but in some countries were perceived as rather technocratic. In terms of legitimacy, the researched countries are doing well on access to information and transparency; procedural justice and accountability. The most potential for improvement lies with the criteria of social equity; public participation and acceptability.