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Reasoning About Uncertainty in Flood Risk Governance

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The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis

Part of the book series: Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning ((LARI,volume 10))

Abstract

The number and impact of catastrophic floods have increased significantly in the last decade, endangering both human lives and the environment. Although there is a broad consensus that the probability and potential impacts of flooding are increasing in many areas of the world, the conditions under which flooding occurs are still uncertain in several ways. In this chapter, I explore how argumentative strategies for framing, timing, goal setting, and dealing with value uncertainty are being employed or can be employed in flood risk governance to deal with these uncertainties. On the basis of a discussion of the different strategies, I sketch a tentative outlook for flood risk governance in the twenty-first century, for which I derive some important lessons concerning the distribution of responsibilities, the political dimension of flood risk governance, and the use of participatory approaches.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Flood risk directive prescribes Member States to assess the flood risks in their river basins and prepare flood hazard and flood risk maps for all areas with a significant flood risk (Art. 4–6 and 13). Moreover, they have to establish flood risk management plans for these areas, containing “appropriate objectives” for managing the risks and measures for achieving these objectives (Art. 7). These plans have to be coordinated at the river basin level (Art. 8) and may not include measures that increase flood risks in other countries, unless agreement on these measures has been reached (Art. 7.4, cf. preamble 15 and 23). Moreover, Member States have to encourage active involvement in the development of the plans (Art. 10.2, Art. 9.3). In doing all this, Member States have to consider human health and the effects on the environment and cultural heritage (Art. 2.2, 7.2 and 7.3).

  2. 2.

    For an example in which such an approach was indeed considered rational, see Schefczyk (2016). In this chapter, Schefczyk explains how Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the US Federal Reserve Bank of the United States, considered relying on insurance measures against unlikely but highly adverse events to be the rational approach, which means that he explicitly accepted the potential consequences.

  3. 3.

    It should be noted that different taxonomies exist. Some scholars talk about top-down approaches as hazard-based and bottom-up approaches as vulnerability-based (cf. Burton et al. 2005).

  4. 4.

    For a cross-country comparison, see Bubeck et al. (2013). The authors notice convergence between flood risk policies in Europe, although Dutch flood risk policy is still more technocratic than the flood risk policy in Germany and the UK. Adaptation to climate change is still not considered in the US flood risk policy because, contrary to Europe, the potential negative effects of global warming are still topic of debate.

  5. 5.

    http://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/flood_risk/implem.htm (last accessed: February 22, 2016).

  6. 6.

    E.g., the UK (Nye et al. 2011; Woods 2008), Germany (Heintz et al. 2012), Italy (Soncini-Sessa 2007). See also Warner et al. (2013) for a comprehensive discussion.

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Acknowledgement

This research is supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) under grant number 016-144-071.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Values, Technology and Innovation, School of Technology, Policy and Management, Technical University Delft, Delft, The Netherlands

    Neelke Doorn

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  1. Department of Philosophy and History, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden

    Sven Ove Hansson

  2. Department of Environmental Systems Scie, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland

    Gertrude Hirsch Hadorn

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Doorn, N. (2016). Reasoning About Uncertainty in Flood Risk Governance. In: Hansson, S., Hirsch Hadorn, G. (eds) The Argumentative Turn in Policy Analysis. Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning, vol 10. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-30549-3_10

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