Planning Background
Who does planning? We all do. But, it shouldn’t be a surprise that there is a cadre of people focused on true planning work. At USACE, the Planning Community of Practice was fond of referring to the 6-Step Planning Process as the beehive. They recognized the many iterations involved, refining past steps with new revelations that inevitably come during the planning process. This is why no answer, no single measure is a catch-all for every city. Instead, the planning process is much like the scissors-paper-stone, or what is sometimes called the Ro-sham-bo game. The FEMA 10 Step Hazard Mitigation Process shares some similar findings, recognizing iterations of planning are often how it goes. The key is to include the public in the findings and build consensus, which is easier said than done.
While everyone does planning, we sometimes underestimate the process. The cross-sector communication problems are often related to ignorance about a particular community of practice, such as the planning-sector.
The importance of plan formulation is one aspect we can benefit from understanding the details.
In the Planning Primer, the terms used for forming alternatives is very deliberate. The technical tools start with terms like a “management measure.” The management measure definition helps, because all the partners are doing the work that planners do. From the reference, Planning Primer, alternatives for solving a water resource flooding problem may be a management measure that is a feature or an activity.
Plans are useless, but planning is everything. Dwight D. Eisenhower
This basic definition captures the interagency and community roles in addressing flood hazards. The features are commonly understood as structural features, or dams, levees, or channels, to name a few. Among the nonstructural management measures are the important activities, such as administrating a floodplain ordinance, ensuring zoning is followed, and checking that building codes are properly included in constructed residences and businesses. Other important activities are maintaining a levee, or cleaning debris from storm sewers. This is why one can quickly understand that a diverse portfolio of measures is important in flood risk management.
Flood Risk Management Basics
In the mid-1900s, the U.S. government was directing agencies to address flood disasters. The Father of Floodplain Management, Gilbert F. White, helped the government get its arms around the problems. His contributions go far beyond his dissertation, Human Adjustment to Floods: A Geographical Approach to the Flood Problem in the United States.
We saw the changing perception of how the United States has dealt with floods over the last 100+ years. Early on the misconception was we could do “flood control.” Then we pivoted to “flood damage reduction,” as we realized floodwaters were one thing, but the consequences were in the floodplain. Eventually, agencies like FEMA and USACE realized that “flood risk management” was the mission, and they re-aligned their functions, so they became more similar to agencies like EPA that had been risk management organizations for years. The practice needed to change to better mitigate flooding.
At its core, flood risk management, as demonstrated in the NFRMP program at USACE, defined things clearly. Defining it starts with focusing in on floodwaters and floodplains. This equation helps quantify the risk:
Flood Risk = (Probability of Flooding) x (Consequences)
For more detail, you can insert a term for the Performance of any feature. Levees have been a key focus in the 2010-2020 decade, but the National Inventory for Dams proceeded levees. Channels are major infrastructure where failures in understanding also abound.
The planning community of practice offers many helpful ways to understand flood risk management. This webpage will bring more insight to help communities understand and adapt their risk levels.
Totalfloodriskmanagement.org 