New challenges for urban areas facing flood risks.

• Author: Chizewer, Debbie M.
• Position: Introduction through III. Local Government Options, p. 1739-1768 - 40th Anniversary Symposium

Introduction I. Urban Areas Face Increased Flood Risks II. Flood Control Policy: Local or Federal Responsibility? A. The Transition from Local to National Control B. The Retreating Federal Role III. Local Government Options A. Passive/Reactive Options B. Proactive Options 1. Prohibit Risky Flood Management 2. Regional Flood Management Program Participation 3. Risk-Based Integrated Flood Management IV. Evaluation of Flood Management Case Studies A. Background--Case Study Areas 1. Fargo, North Dakota-Moorhead, Minnesota 2. Cedar Rapids, Iowa 3. Sacramento, California B. Evaluation of Case Studies 1. Considering Climate Change Data 2. Regional Collaboration and Ecosystem Restoration 3. Nonstructural Approaches 4. Structural Solutions and Federal Government Involvement Conclusion A flood doesn't exist except in our memory banks. It's a temporal event. It is not the river and it's not the land. It's neither here nor there. (1)

INTRODUCTION

Hurricane Sandy has delivered another painful reminder that urban areas need to find new ways to confront the increasingly difficult task of flood preparation. A flood occurs "when water runoff from the land exceeds the capacity of the stream channel." (2) Excepting the Inner Mountain West and Southern California, a map of vulnerable flood areas picks up almost all major urban areas in the United States. (3) Between 1929 and 2003, urban floods in the United States caused an estimated $171 billion in property damage. (4) Floods have caused the most losses of any natural disaster in the United States. (5) Billions of dollars have been invested in flood prevention structures. But, as "first responders" in the battle to prevent and respond to flood damage, local governments will see urban flood damages rise for four primary reasons. First, federal flood control policy over eighty years has created the illusion that infrastructure and post-disaster relief can provide maximum protection from flood damages. (6) Second, more cost-effective avoidance strategies, such as less intensive flood plain development and restoration, have been undermined by the federal flood insurance program, which has encouraged intense development in river and coastal flood plains instead of redirecting it to less vulnerable areas. (7) Third, global climate change is projected to produce more intense flood and coastal storm surge events. (8) Fourth, damage prevention responsibility is being de facto devolved to local governments as the federal government and the states, with notable exceptions, are investing less of the scant, available dollars in flood infrastructure construction. (9)

This Article examines the challenges and opportunities that urban areas face in developing effective flood control strategies in light of climate change and decreasing federal and state flood control expenditures. (10) The evolution of flood control policy and law in the United States reveals a gradual shift in thinking from the concept of "maximum protection," provided largely by the federal government, toward the notion that flood damage must be viewed as a risk that can be minimized, but not totally avoided. These risks can be managed at the local and regional level under the principles of integrated flood plain management (IFPM). Integrated flood plain management uses a combination of structural measures, flood management to produce less intensive flood plain development, and flood plain restoration to reconnect rivers to their flood plains to take advantage of the landscape's ability to retard the spread of water. (11) While the United States has not developed comprehensive or mandatory requirements regarding flood management or the use of IFPM, the European Union's Floods Directive requires its member states to develop risk-based flood management. (12) With the EU Floods Directive as a framework for assessing innovative local approaches to flood management, this Article argues that flood management theory has advanced considerably but that flood management practice has not kept the pace needed to avert massive flood damages.

Part I of this Article surveys the flood risks that local governments confront during "normal" flood events as well as from climate change. Part II briefly traces the evolution of United States flood control policy from local responsibility to the federal government and back to local governments in partnership with state and federal governments. This shift reflects the growing recognition that effective flood control requires partnerships among multiple levels of government that can each contribute distinct expertise and resources. Part III addresses the available options for local governments, as they play a more prominent role in flood management. Part IV reviews innovative local or regional flood damage prevention programs in Fargo-Moorhead, North Dakota, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Sacramento, California, and it evaluates these programs against the emerging model of integrated flood plain management.

1. URBAN AREAS FACE INCREASED FLOOD RISKS

   "Water draws people to it." (13) Rivers operate to channel rainwater and move it to the sea or to a closed basin. When the amount of water exceeds the channel capacity, the water flows on to adjoining land, the flood plain. In places such as Ancient Egypt, flood cycles were originally seen as blessings because they sustained riverine ecosystems and the flood plain economies dependent on them. (14) Floods caused social problems when they did not come. (15) However, as more people settled in flood plains, floods became a social problem because they both disrupted agricultural production and caused extensive damage to settlements. Nations such as China soon responded by accepting flood control responsibility. (16)

   Most inland United States urban settlements were drawn to the advantages of rivers and lakes. (17) These areas face three types of flood risks. The first is that heavy rain events have always been are part of "natural" climate variability. (18) Factors such as cyclical changes in the temperature of the surface of the sea can both decrease and increase precipitation. (19) Second, climate change is projected to exacerbate flood risks because heavier, prolonged rain events will occur. Similar to all climate change science controversies, debate persists about the impact that rising greenhouse levels have on flood events. (20) The authoritative United States Geological Service recently found only the Southwest, the region least vulnerable to floods, showed a relationship between increased C[O.sub.2] levels and the size of floods over the past 100 years. (21) In the end, the causal debate is largely irrelevant for urban areas. Extreme weather events, such as floods, have clearly increased. (22) Because the international community has been unable to agree on an effective mitigation strategy, the only choice for at-risk areas is to adapt by trying to minimize the possible adverse consequences. The primary consequence for all those involved in flood management is that historic assumptions of stationarity have been undermined. Hydrology has long assumed that water behaves in a predictable fashion and that variations in floods and droughts occur within a relatively narrow band. (23) As applied to flood control, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has required that flood plain maps and land use regulation rely on the concept of the 100-year flood. (24) A 100-year flood is a flood that has a probability of occurring once in a 100 years. The standard has been widely criticized because it gives the false illusion that such a flood will in fact occur only every 100 years. (25) Floods are much more variable and climate change will produce more "statistically frequent" (26) and more extreme flood "events."

   The third problem is the legacy of past local, state and federal flood control strategies. The country's investment in levees, dams and floodways have prevented damage, but they also have had a perverse effect: structural flood plain protection encourages more settlement, which in turn increases the number of people and property impacted when a flood occurs. (27) The result is a classic moral hazard problem. A moral hazard is a socially undesirable, often inefficient, behavior encouraged by the expectation that it will not be punished and often will be rewarded. (28)

   The moral hazard problem is especially acute in flood prone areas where the existence of levees often leads to an illusionary sense of safety for flood plain residents. The illusion is a dangerous one, because our infrastructure is old and increasingly unsafe. Congress acknowledged this problem when, in 2007, it ordered the United States Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) to undertake an assessment of levees over which it has oversight, including levees initially...