Review of the flood risk management system in Germany after the major flood in 2013

The review highlights considerable improvements to flood risk management in Germany following the major flood in 2013. Nevertheless, important aspects remain unclear and need to be clarified. This particularly holds for balanced and coordinated strategies for reducing and overcoming the impacts of flooding in large catchments, cross-border and interdisciplinary cooperation, the role of the general public in the different phases of flood risk management, as well as a transparent risk transfer system. Recurring flood events reveal that flood risk management is a continuous task.

The study shows that risk drivers, such as climate change, land-use changes, economic developments, or demographic change, and the resultant risks must be investigated at regular intervals. Risk reduction strategies and processes must be reassessed as well as adapted and implemented in a dialogue with all stakeholders. 

Ecology and Society 21(2): 51. Part of "Toward More Resilient Flood Risk Governance" and shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC 4.0).