Responding to early flood warning in the European Union

TY - CHAP

T1 - Responding to early flood warning in the European Union

AU - Demeritt, David

AU - Nobert, Sebastien

PY - 2011

Y1 - 2011

N2 - Focusing on the European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) in particular, this chapter is about the development and dissemination of such early flood warnings within the EU. A perennial local hazard managed by regional and national authorities in Europe, flooding has begun to attract the attention of the European Union as a risk of regulatory interest, in the contexts both of precautionary environmental protection and of security and civil contingencies. Whereas the recently enacted Flooding Directive sets out an EU-wide framework for reducing the frequency and impact of flooding, EFAS is one of a number of early warning systems now being developed by the European Commission to enhance its capacity to anticipate and manage at a European level the incidence of such civil contingencies. Drawing on more than 65 semi-structured interviews with various forecasters, civil protection authorities (CPAs), and policy makers involved in operational flood management in 17 countries from across Europe, we highlight a number of barriers to overcoming the warning-response challenge in operational flood management. After placing the origins of EFAS in the wider policy context of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, we turn to the challenges of communicating and interpreting EFAS alerts. But beyond these cognitive challenges to acting on EFAS alerts, we also highlight some institutional and political difficulties associated with the delivery and response to early flood warnings by the EU

AB - Focusing on the European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) in particular, this chapter is about the development and dissemination of such early flood warnings within the EU. A perennial local hazard managed by regional and national authorities in Europe, flooding has begun to attract the attention of the European Union as a risk of regulatory interest, in the contexts both of precautionary environmental protection and of security and civil contingencies. Whereas the recently enacted Flooding Directive sets out an EU-wide framework for reducing the frequency and impact of flooding, EFAS is one of a number of early warning systems now being developed by the European Commission to enhance its capacity to anticipate and manage at a European level the incidence of such civil contingencies. Drawing on more than 65 semi-structured interviews with various forecasters, civil protection authorities (CPAs), and policy makers involved in operational flood management in 17 countries from across Europe, we highlight a number of barriers to overcoming the warning-response challenge in operational flood management. After placing the origins of EFAS in the wider policy context of the EU Civil Protection Mechanism, we turn to the challenges of communicating and interpreting EFAS alerts. But beyond these cognitive challenges to acting on EFAS alerts, we also highlight some institutional and political difficulties associated with the delivery and response to early flood warnings by the EU

M3 - Chapter

SP - 127

EP - 147

BT - Forecasting, Warning, and Transnational Risks: Is Prevention Possible?

A2 - Meyer, C. O.

A2 - De Franco, C.

PB - Palgrave Macmillan

ER -