Thomas Thaler

Evolving inter-regional co-operation in flood risk management: distances and types of partnership approaches in Austria

Abstract Flood risk management and policy in Europe are changing, so the role of local and catchment-wide flood risk management plans is now key contemporary issues in flood policy. A new policy agenda is to enhance inter-local solutions instead of local flood alleviation schemes. This paper analyses the new role of those local authorities and stakeholders in flood risk management as well as how the nature of the partnerships is established and operated, focusing especially on the main barriers and challenges. This paper examines catchment-based flood risk management in Austria. Catchment-based flood risk management was analysed in three different Austrian regions (Aist in Upper Austria, Triesting-Tal in Lower Austria and Ill-Walgau in Vorarlberg). The current functions of a partnership approach in flood risk prevention lie within the selection of sites for conservation of regionally important retention areas, harmonising spatial planning instruments and awareness-raising for protective measures on an inter-local level. The empirical results are currently characterised by a lack of sufficient co-operation between the members as well as with the regional authorities. The three case studies show different backgrounds and developments. The results show that the inter-local co-operation process is in no cases fully achieved. Some of the case studies show a higher integration in one field than others.

Justice and flood risk management: reflecting on different approaches to distribute and allocate flood risk management in Europe

This paper compares the inherent notions of justice in four different approaches to flood risk management in Europe. As protection against flood risks becomes increasingly difficult, dilemmas of justice emerge: some benefits from flood protection measures whereas others loose. Decisions on whom to protect differentiate between upstream and downstream or left and right side of a river. This raises a central but barely discussed conflict: what (or rather who) should be protected against inundations? This question deals in essence with justice. Justice concerns questions over fairness in the allocation of resources, capital and wealth across different members of society. There are different and contradicting concepts of justice, which differ in interpretations of fair resource allocation and distributions. ‘What’s the right thing to protect’ is thus a question of concepts of justice. This contribution is not an attempt to answer this fundamental question, but it offers a debate on how different concepts of justice provide different answers. These answers will then be related to flood risk management approaches in England, the Netherlands, Germany, and Austria.

Natural Hazard Management from a Coevolutionary Perspective: Exposure and Policy Response in the European Alps

A coevolutionary perspective is adopted to understand the dynamics of exposure to mountain hazards in the European Alps. A spatially explicit, object-based temporal assessment of elements at risk to mountain hazards (river floods, torrential floods, and debris flows) in Austria and Switzerland is presented for the period from 1919 to 2012. The assessment is based on two different data sets: (1) hazard information adhering to legally binding land use planning restrictions and (2) information on building types combined from different national-level spatial data. We discuss these transdisciplinary dynamics and focus on economic, social, and institutional interdependencies and interactions between human and physical systems. Exposure changes in response to multiple drivers, including population growth and land use conflicts. The results show that whereas some regional assets are associated with a strong increase in exposure to hazards, others are characterized by a below-average level of exposure. The spatiotemporal results indicate relatively stable hot spots in the European Alps. These results coincide with the topography of the countries and with the respective range of economic activities and political settings. Furthermore, the differences between management approaches as a result of multiple institutional settings are discussed. A coevolutionary framework widens the explanatory power of multiple drivers to changes in exposure and risk and supports a shift from structural, security-based policies toward an integrated, risk-based natural hazard management system.

Multi-vulnerability analysis for flash flood risk management

Vulnerability assessment implies a quantitative evaluation of the individual vulnerability components such as elements at risk, their physical exposure and social characteristics. Current approaches in vulnerability research are driven by a divide between social scientists who tend to view vulnerability as representing a set of socio-economic factors, and scientists who view vulnerability in terms of the degree of loss to an element at risk. To close this gap, a multi-dimensional vulnerability analysis has been undertaken focusing on flash flood hazards in Greece. To represent physical vulnerability, an empirical relation between the process intensity and the degree of loss was established. With respect to social vulnerability, an assessment was undertaken by means of empirical data collection based on a door-to-door survey. In general, both physical and social vulnerability was comparable low, which is interpreted as a result from (a) specific building regulations in Greece as well as general design principles leading to less structural susceptibility of elements at risk exposed, and (b) a relatively low economic loss leading to less social vulnerability of citizens exposed. It is shown that a combination of different perspectives of vulnerability will lead to a better understanding of perceptions of actors regarding their vulnerabilities and capacities.

Developing partnership approaches for flood risk management: implementation of inter-local co-operations in Austria

This article relates how catchment-wide partnership agreements have been used in approaching flood risk management in Austria. Upstream–downstream co-operations are clearly influenced by a number of factors, where the combination of these interdependences can create specific conditions that alter the opportunity for effective governance arrangements in a local scheme approach. We present the motivations and drivers of the creation of inter-local co-operations in flood risk management, focusing especially on the main barriers and challenges. Although a partnership approach may be seen as an ‘optimal’ solution for flood risk management, in practice there are many limitations and barriers to establishing these collaborations.

Investigating the use of environmental benefits in the policy decision process: a qualitative study focusing on the EU water policy

This paper presents the use of environmental benefits in the policy-making process in nine European countries. Growing competition for financial resources suggests that a precise understanding of the benefits provided by policies is needed. In particular, the environmental co-benefits that environmental policies offer must be more thoroughly investigated. Yet because there is often a focus on systems rather than individual species or specific environmental factors it becomes more difficult to characterise benefits. This paper shows that the role of environmental benefits to advise policy action differs across selected European countries. Environmental benefits are used at different stages of the policy cycle and for different purposes. In many cases they are not used to inform high level decision making but to stimulate public debate or to develop more targeted legislative proposals.

Allocation of risk and benefits—distributional justices in mountain hazard management

As financing protection against mountain hazards becomes increasingly challenging and therefore investments have to be prioritized, dilemmas of justice emerge: some local governments and individuals benefit from natural hazard protection schemes, whereas others loose. Decisions on whom to protect often caused contradicting concepts of political understanding, which differ in interpretations of fair resource allocation and distribution. This paper analyses the impact of different philosophical schools of social justice on mountain hazard management in Austria. We used data from a spatially explicit, object-based assessment of elements at risk and compared potential distributional effects of three political jurisdictions. We found that—depending on the respective political direction—various local governments gain and others loose within the actual distributional system of mitigation strategies. The implementation of a utilitarian policy approach would cause that high income communities in hazard-prone areas would mainly benefit. Consequently, this policy direction would encourage the public administration to ignore their own failure in the past natural hazards management and prevention. On the other hand, following a Rawlsians approach mainly peripheral communities would gain from new policy direction who often show besides natural hazards problem mainly large socio-economic challenges. Finally, the most radical change would include the implementation of a liberalism policy, whereabouts the state only provides hazard information, but no further mitigation measures. These findings highlight the distributional consequences of future mountain hazard management strategies and point to the crucial selection of policy direction in navigating the selection of various adaptation schemes.

Moving away from local-based flood risk policy in Austria

Abstract Floodplain areas across the world have always played an attractive role for residential and non-residential developments. The Alpine regions have a strong pressure to develop new residential and non-residential buildings in hazard areas due to lack of other areas suitable for development. Consequently, the number of elements at risk and vulnerability to flood hazards increased. In order to reduce the vulnerability, the focus of mitigation flood hazards was for decades on structural engineering measures with the problem of spatial misfits between the threat and management strategy. Since the late 1990s/early 2000s, Austrian policy makers have been trying to overcome this spatial misfit with the implementation of an inter-local co-operation approach with the use of so-called ‘new spatial planning’ (Heley, 2013) in the planning process. Therefore, the paper examines what the actors and stakeholders are doing in practice and how the concept of fuzziness helps. Although a partnership approach may be seen as a promising solution, in practice there are many limitations and barriers in establishing these collaborations and making them effective (especially in the long term). Rhetoric may not be matched by reality and a ‘partnership’ agenda may bring more problems (i.e. high transactions costs, high risk of failure, uncertainty in the long term) than it solves.

Micro-sized enterprises: vulnerability to flash floods

In the framework of risk assessment for flash floods, vulnerability is a key concept to assess the susceptibility of elements at risk. Vulnerability is defined as expected degree of loss for an element at risk due to a hazard impact of a defined magnitude and frequency. Besides the increasing number of studies on flash floods available, in-depth information on vulnerability was missing so far. In order to close this gap, a vulnerability model was created for micro-sized enterprises exposed to flash floods in Greece. This model was based on a nonlinear regression approach using data from four different events. By means of bootstrapping, different functions were fitted to the data, and a modified Weibull distribution was found to represent the relationship between process magnitude and degree of loss best. Moreover, there is no need to distinguish between different business sectors when computing vulnerability for buildings exposed. The model can be applied on a local scale and may serve as a basis for flash flood risk management.

Correction to: Allocation of risk and benefits—distributional justices in mountain hazard management

The original paper was published not bearing Open Access copyright and north arrows are missing from the figures