A flooding river is very hard to stop. Many residents of the United States have discovered this the hard way. Right now, over five million Americans hold flood insurance policies from the National Flood Insurance Program, which estimates that flooding causes at least six billion dollars in damages every year. Like rivers after a rainstorm, the financial costs are rising along with the toll on residents. And the worst is probably yet to come. Most scientists believe that global climate change will result in increases in flooding. The authors of this book present a straightforward argument: the time to stop a flooding rivers is before is before it floods. Floodplain Management outlines a new paradigm for flood management, one that emphasizes cost-effective, long-term success by integrating physical, chemical, and biological systems with our societal capabilities. It describes our present flood management practices, which are often based on dam or levee projects that do not incorporate the latest understandings about river processes. And it suggests that a better solution is to work with the natural tendencies of the river: retreat from the floodplain by preventing future development (and sometimes even removing existing structures); accommodate the effects of floodwaters with building practices; and protect assets with nonstructural measures if possible, and with large structural projects only if absolutely necessary.

This volume provides a comprehensive perspective on geomorphic approaches to management of lowland alluvial rivers in North America and Europe. Many lowland rivers have been heavily managed for flood control and navigation for decades or centuries, resulting in engineered channels and embanked floodplains with substantially altered sediment loads and geomorphic processes. Over the past decade, floodplain management of many lowland rivers has taken on new importance because of concerns about the potential for global environmental change to alter floodplain processes, necessitating revised management strategies that minimize flood risk while enhancing environmental attributes of floodplains influenced by local embankments and upstream dams. Recognition of the failure of old perspectives on river management and the need to enhance environmental sustainability has stimulated a new approach to river management. The manner that river restoration and integrated management are implemented, however, requires a case study approach that takes into account the impact of historic human impacts to the system, especially engineering. The river basins examined in this volume provide a representative coverage of the drainage of North America and Europe, taking into account a range of climatic and physiographic provinces. They include the 1) Sacramento (California, USA), 2) San Joaquin (California), 3) Missouri (Missouri, USA), 4) Red (Manitoba, Canada and Minnesota, USA), 5) Mississippi (Louisiana, USA), 6) Kissimmee (Florida, USA), 7) Ebro (Spain), 8) Rhone (France), 9) Rhine (Netherlands), 10) Danube (Romania), and 11) Volga (Russian Federation) Rivers. The case studies covered in these chapters span a range of fluvial modes of adjustment, including sediment, channel, hydrologic regime, floodplains, as well as ecosystem and environmental associations.

Introduction to temperate floodplains -- Hydrology -- Floodplain and geomorphology -- Biogeochemistry -- Ecology: introduction -- Floodplain forests -- Primary and secondary production -- Fish and other vertebrates -- Ecosystem services and floodplain reconciliation -- Floodplains as green infrastructure -- Case studies of floodplain management and reconciliation -- Central Valley floodplains: introduction and history -- Central Valley floodplains today -- Reconciling Central Valley floodplains -- Conclusions: managing temperate floodplains for multiple benefits

Over the last decades the world has witnessed a growing number of floods in urban areas. Climate change and rapid urbanization will exacerbate this trend. Flooding incidents in urbanized catchments and low-lying areas, such as polders, can lead to great public concern and anxiety, and their economical impact is severe. Apart from well-known flood prevention strategies, new approaches to the accommodation of floods are needed to create robust and sustainable solutions that enable us to cope with the ever-increasing urban pressure on flood-prone areas and the uncertainties created by climate change. Urban Flood Management comprises a multidisciplinary survey of recent developments in this field. Subjects like spatial and urban planning, flood insurance, flood resilience, flood proofing techniques, risk perception and preparedness and flood forecasting are treated by authorities from Brazil, India, the USA and Europe. Urban Flood Management will provide anyone active in the fields of water, risk and urban management with the latest information and insights that were obtained with a global and multidisciplinary approach.

Flood catastrophes which happened world-wide have shown that it is not sufficient to characterize the hazard caused by the natural phenomenon "flood" with the well-known 3M-approach (measuring, mapping and modelling). Due to the recent shift in paradigms from a safety oriented approach to risk based planning it became necessary to consider the harmful impacts of hazards. The planning tasks changed from attempts to minimise hazards towards interventions to reduce exposure or susceptibility and nowadays to enhance the capacities to increase resilience. Scientific interest shifts more and more towards interdisciplinary approaches, which are needed to avoid disaster. This book deals with many aspects of flood risk management in a comprehensive way. As risks depend on hazard and vulnerabilities, not only geophysical tools for flood forecasting and planning are presented, but also socio-economic problems of flood management are discussed. Starting with precipitation and meteorological tools to its forecasting, hydrological models are described in their applications for operational flood forecasts, considering model uncertainties and their interactions with hydraulic and groundwater models. With regard to flood risk planning, regionalization aspects and the options to utilize historic floods are discussed. New hydrological tools for flood risk assessments for dams and reservoirs are presented. Problems and options to quantify socio-economic risks and how to consider them in multi-criteria assessments of flood risk planning are discussed. This book contributes to the contemporary efforts to reduce flood risk at the European scale. Using many real-world examples, it is useful for scientists and practitioners at different levels and with different interests.

This book presents selected papers from the 7th International Conference on Water and Flood Management,with a special focus on Water Security under Climate Change, held in Dhaka, Bangladesh in March 2019. The biennial conference is organized by Institute of Water and Flood Management of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology. The recent decades have experienced more frequent natural calamities and it is believed that climate change is an important driving factor for such hazards. Each part of the hydrological cycle is affected by global climate change. Moreover, increasing population and economic activities are posing a bigger threat to water sources. To ensure sustainable livelihoods, safeguard ecosystem services, and enhance socio-economic development, water security needs to be investigated widely in a global and regional context.