Groundhog Day for flood response

Groundhog Day for flood response

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

University of Waikato Professor of Environmental Planning Iain White says it’s the ‘same again’ responses to flooding and extreme weather events that is hindering politicians and planners’ ability to learn from previous events and plan for effective responses to flooding.

New paper on flood response

His new paper, Groundhog Day, draws attention to the recurring conversations that keep happening after a flood and the need to tailor flood responses to different areas and the different risks they present.

It came about as a result of a conversation he had with an English colleague about the flooding that was occurring in the UK in 2014. The flooding had prompted calls to consult the Dutch, who were considered experts in flood prevention.

However, The Netherlands’ flood prevention involves huge technical defences to keep the sea out. This is different to the UK, where flooding often occurs when increased rainfall causes drainage systems to overflow.

“This is one of the messages of the paper – there are different types of flooding risks and different types of solutions,” Professor White says.

“In New Zealand, flooding is regional and requires individual solutions. For example, parts of low-lying land around the Thames coast have certain types of risk, but we also know that Wellington and Dunedin have had floods too so that’s different kinds of risk and different solutions we should be thinking about.”

The cycle of response

Professor White says given the increased occurrence of major flooding events, we can’t keep responding in the same way to them. This is important considering the majority of climate scientists agree that we will continue to experience more unprecedented extreme weather events.

“Given how much we know about flooding and what causes it, we should really have gotten better at managing our response,” he says.

He’s noticed the public response after a major flood is usually the same: people cry out for a review of flood-forecasting and response policies and ask the same questions – is more flooding occurring because of climate change? Are some areas being left behind? Are scientists’ warnings being heard and carried through in planning?

Listening to the future

“We need to listen to what the science and predictions are telling us. We need to get used to the fact that extreme weather may become our ‘new normal’, and we need a policy environment that changes as the science does.

“It’s about how we’re listening to the future, and how we’re giving it a voice. We know that
Tackling global warming is the central part of a multi-pronged approach to flood policy, but it’s also about how we might adapt; how we might build differently and how we might respond to some of the more extreme events that are happening.”

ENDS

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