E-learning Module 1 - Flooding : Briefing

Module Goal

This e-learning module will show how the WISE-RTD Water Knowledge Portal can be used to identify considerable policy, research and industry resources that can help with flood-risk management. The intelligent keyword linking within the WISE-RTD water knowledge portal will demonstrate the inter-relationships between policy, research and industry allowing you to make the best-informed decisions possible.

Additional information

Every year large areas of Europe are devastated by floods. Over the last few decades their occurrence has increased due to climate change and human interactions with natural systems. River floods are the most common natural disaster in Europe. They claim human and animal lives, displace people, effect health. Floods damage property and agricultural land. They impair infrastructures causing large economic loss and shortages. They also have a severe effect on the environment. Since 1998 floods in Europe have caused some 700 deaths, the displacement of around half a million people and at least €25 billion in economic losses.

Specific flood-risk management policies exist and the European Union, with its Flood Directive, aims to encourage countries to take a coordinated, cross border approach to flood-risk management. Extensive research, with the aid of EC funding, has been carried out to predict, prevent, minimize or mitigate the effects of flooding. A significant industry has grown up around flood risk management, but unfortunately, an integrated approach is not always applied.