The Geneva Association is pleased to share a series of four reports on Building Flood Resilience in a Changing Climate in mature economies – comprehensive studies on flood risk management (FRM) in the United States, Germany and England, and an overview report with key findings and stakeholder recommendations.

The authors will discuss the reports in next Risk Conversations webinar on 7 July 2020 at 15:00–16:00 CEST / 9:00–10:00 EST.

Building Flood Resilience in a Changing Climate: Insights from the United States, England and Germany by Maryam Golnaraghi, Swenja Surminski, Carolyn Kousky

Flood Risk Management in the United States by Carolyn Kousky, Maryam Golnaraghi

Flood Risk Management in Germany by Swenja Surminski, Viktor Roezer, Maryam Golnaraghi

Flood Risk Management in England by Swenja Surminski, Sara Mehryar, Maryam Golnaraghi

Floods are among the most costly weather-related events globally and an urgent and growing risk for society. Economic losses associated with floods are on the rise due to the effects of climate change, land-use planning and development practices. Floods and other extreme weather-related events are a special threat in light of COVID-19, with government resources for emergency management and socio-economic recovery already stretched.

These studies took a deep look at FRM in the focus countries, revealing a number of trends, successes and gaps in FRM approaches, including the following:

• Despite many FRM actions by public and private stakeholders, their efforts do not adequately factor in the changing risk landscape associated with climate change, local land-use and development decisions.
• FRM efforts are mostly reactive to major flooding events and do not sufficiently emphasise sustainable recovery and reconstruction after an event or protecting at-risk populations with forward-looking initiatives.
• Publicly available flood-risk information is raising awareness among homeowners, communities, businesses and local governments, but there are varying levels of impact on decisions to reduce or prevent risks.
• Models for public-private partnerships are evolving and proving beneficial, yet there is an opportunity to further strengthen coordination across levels of government and different sectors.

The investigations and accompanying recommendations aim to guide the public and private sectors in taking a risk-informed, anticipatory, holistic and system-wide approach to managing disaster risks and therefore, to strengthening societal resilience to floods.