Flood management

Flood management or flood control are methods used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters. Flooding can be caused by a mix of both natural processes, such as extreme weather upstream, and human changes to waterbodies and runoff. Flood management methods can be either of the structural type (i.e. flood control) and of the non-structural type. Structural methods hold back floodwaters physically, while non-structural methods do not. Building hard infrastructure to prevent flooding, such as flood walls, is effective at managing flooding. However, it is best practice within landscape engineering to rely more on soft infrastructure and natural systems, such as marshes and flood plains, for handling the increase in water.

Flood management can include flood risk management, which focuses on measures to reduce risk, vulnerability and exposure to flood disasters and providing risk analysis through, for example, flood risk assessment. Flood mitigation is a related but separate concept describing a broader set of strategies taken to reduce flood risk and potential impact while improving resilience against flood events.

As climate change has led to increased flood risk an intensity, flood management is an important part of climate change adaptation and climate resilience. For example, to prevent or manage coastal flooding, coastal management practices have to handle natural processes like tides but also sea level rise due to climate change. The prevention and mitigation of flooding can be studied on three levels: on individual properties, small communities, and whole towns or cities.

Flood management is a broad term that includes measures to control or mitigate flood waters, such as actions to prevent floods from occurring or to minimize their impacts when they do occur.

Flood management methods can be structural or non-structural:

There are several related terms that are closely connected or encompassed by flood management.

Flood management can include flood risk management, which focuses on measures to reduce risk, vulnerability and exposure to flood disasters and providing risk analysis through, for example, flood risk assessment. In the context of natural hazards and disasters, risk management involves "plans, actions, strategies or policies to reduce the likelihood and/or magnitude of adverse potential consequences, based on assessed or perceived risks".

Flood control, flood protection, flood defence and flood alleviation are all terms that mean "the detention and/or diversion of water during flood events for the purpose of reducing discharge or downstream inundation". Flood control is part of environmental engineering. It involves the management of water movement, such as redirecting flood run-off through the use of floodwalls and flood gates to prevent floodwaters from reaching a particular area.