Working Group F on Floods Brno, 25 - 26 May 2009

Working Group F on Floods Brno, 25 - 26 May 2009

Thematic Workshop on Implementation of the Directive 2007/60/EC

WORKING GROUP ‘F’

THEMATIC WORKSHOP

On Implementation of the Directive 2007/60/EC

Preliminary flood risk assessment

Brno 2009

WORKSHOP REPORT

Important note

The views and opinions, conclusions and recommendations set out herein are those made by one or more delegates at the workshop for consideration by Member States (MS), the European Commission (COM), Working Group F (WG F) and other readers. They do not represent an agreed common position among, or the official position of any MS or of COM, WG F or any other organisation represented by one or more delegates at the workshop. To promote open discussion, it was agreed at the outset of the Workshop that individuals, MS or organisations would not be named in relation to any comments, views or recommendations reported herein.

Executive summary 7

Workshop Introduction 9

Introduction 9

Workshop Background 9

Workshop Objectives and Outputs 10

Workshop Structure 11

Report Structure 11

Report on Sessions 12

Session 1 - How to present and use historical floods data for future? 12

Session 2 - How to cope with flood protection measures and residual risk? 15

Session 3 - Understanding of potential significant flood risk 17

Session 4 - Understanding of potential significant flood risk 20

Session 5 - Long-term developments 23

Session 6 - Results, Information, Reporting 26

Session 7 - Flood risk management planning 29

Workshop Conclusions 31

Outputs from the workshop discussions 31

Main Workshop Conclusions and Recommendations 35

Appendices 35

Workshop programme 38

Delegate list 40

Executive summary

WG F Thematic Workshop on Implementation of the Directive 2007/60/EC - Preliminary flood risk assessment took place in Brno, Czech Republic from 25th to 26th of May 2009. There were 61 participants from 20 Member States, EC and other countries and organizations (Norway, Switzerland, WMO, JRC, CEA/MRN, ICPDR, EIB, EWA, JACOBS).

Workshop objectives and structure

The core objectives of the workshop were to compile the overview on state of the understanding of key issues of Preliminary flood risk assessment (PFRA) among Member states; to discuss and exchange information on good practices on PFRA; to draw conclusions and proposals on PFRA good practices with respect to implementation process of Floods Directive and report them to WG F an to detect the necessity of PFRA and its reviews.

To reach those objectives, the workshop was divided into following thematic sessions:

1.  How to present and use the historical floods data for future? (Art. 4b,c)

2.  How to cope with flood protection measures and residual risk? (Art. 4d)

3.  Understanding of potential significant flood risk (Art. 5)

4.  Long term developments (Art. 4d)

5.  Results, information, reporting

-  Results and information to be available to public and to EC

-  What is the useful scope and detail of reporting?

6.  Flood risk management planning

All sessions were introduced with the evaluation analysis of relevant answers to the questionnaires (24) that had been circulated prior to the workshop. Several oral presentations (17) from different Member States were presented and discussion in small split out groups followed.

Workshop outputs and conclusions

Presentations, questionnaire evaluation and discussion summary raised up following issues, conclusions and outputs:

Data on past floods are of varying level of detail and completeness in space and time. Generally, complete data including inundation maps and social impacts are available only for recent flood events occurred in about last 20 years. The availability of data (databases) differs among the Member States. However historical floods may illustrate the possible magnitude of flood for general public, but its relevancy must be taken into account (land use changes etc.). At least basic past floods information sharing in transboundary basins is of great concern using a platform of shared database.

Significant flood risk definition will not be uniform over the Europe; however the basic approach accounting for affected people, property and environmental risk is assumed in those countries not applying for art. 13.

Similarly, an extreme flood (low probability flood) definition differs among the MS. In the same time most of the Member States intend to use flood of selected probability in range of 0.005 to 0.001.

Directive does not include exhaustive list of floods to be considered during implementation. There are many types of flooding suiting Directive flood definition, varying in origin, risk and extent. List of all possible types of flood will be beneficial to ensure a common understanding among the MS on different terms. On the other hand among the MS, mostly fluvial and coastal (where appropriate) floods are the only ones considered to be of significant risk. Dealing with other types of floods (including groundwater flooding, pluvial floods, ice jams backwaters etc.) should be understand as MS specific needs as defined by Directive Arc. 4. The above remarks imply that for the reporting only the main flood types should be namely checked for being assessed during PFRA. In the same time simple negative reporting based on non-occurrence of significant events of particular flood type in the past should be enabled for other than fluvial and coastal floods.

Proposals for actions and activities

Workshop raised proposals for following actions and activities:

1.  To compile a list of different types of floods occurring in Europe including description of particular flood types to support development of the reporting sheets.

2.  To initiate development of informational database collecting basic data on historical floods to promote and stimulate easier data exchange among Member States.

3.  To promote preparation of structure (outline) for summaries in reporting sheets and guidelines for general public on understanding and interpretation of the information published in PFRA.

4.  To further specify the issue on exclusion especially of particular flood type from PFRA, but also in the context with Art.2.

List of flood types

The list of different flood types was assembled and negotiated among workshop participants in weeks following the workshop (annex to the workshop final report). The final version of list of flood types recognizes 6 main flood categories that are proposed to be used in developing the reporting sheets on PFRA:

-  Flooding from rivers, open channels, streams, mountain torrents and lakes

-  Coastal flooding

-  Pluvial flooding

-  Groundwater flooding

-  Artificial flooding

-  Other specific types of floods (reflecting MS specific needs)

The list of flood types was provided to Reporting drafting group.

Workshop Introduction

Introduction

The Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic (the Ministry, MoE), is delighted to have hosted the the 2nd WG F Thematic Workshop on Implementation of the Directive 2007/60/EC (on PFRA) in Brno on 25 – 26 May 2009, and to have welcomed over 60 delegates from over 20 European countries, the European Commission (COM) and other international organisations.

The Workshop was organised by an organising committee (to whom the Ministry wishes to express their gratitude), comprising:

-  Mr. Jan Daňhelka (Czech Republic)

-  Mrs. Maria Brättemark (COM)

-  Mrs. Barbro Näslund- Landenmark (Sweden)

-  Mrs. Elfi Laridon (Belgium)

-  Mrs. Meike Gierk (Germany)

-  Mr. Martin Socher (Germany)

-  Mr. Wouter Vanneuville (Belgium)

-  Mr. Ad de Roo (COM - JRC)

-  Mr. Loek Knijff (Netherlands)

-  Mr. Mark Adamson (Ireland)

-  Mr. Jaromír Říha (Czech Republic)

-  Mr. Jan Kubát (Czech Republic)

A big hand for organisers from Department of Water Protection (MoE) were also students of water management and environmental engineering of the Czech Agriculture University of Prague, to whom belongs ours thanks as well. And we hope that it was good experience for them attending such an event too.

At the same time, the International Water Management and Environmental Fairs WATENVI 2009 started and participants of the workshop were also sincerely invited to one of the fairs show exhibition ´Flood Protection Brno 2009´. They could also meet there other international guests from US flood protection institutions and from expert WG of International Commission for Protection of Oder River, which had their meeting there at the same time. (http://www.bvv.cz/floodprotection).

Workshop Background

Directive 2007/60/EC on the assessment and management of flood risks (the Floods Directive) entered into force in November 2007. Working Group F on Floods (WG F) has been established in 2007 first of all to support the implementation of the Floods Directive, but among the others, to provide a platform for information exchange as well. WG F at its second meeting agreed on the information exchange made through the series of thematic workshops addressing particular issues of Floods Directive to help Member States with the implementation process of the Directive.

Floods Directive defines three milestones to be achieved in next 7 years. The first of them is preliminary flood risk assessment (Article 4 & 5) to define areas of potential significant flood risk (2011) for further flood mapping (2013) and flood management planning (2015).

Floods Directive defines only general demands on Preliminary flood risk assessment (PFRA) output, while methods of its delivery is remained in the competence of Member States as geographical, hydrological and social differences demands for specific approach. In any case soon exchange of good practices and experience will be beneficial in progress of PFRA across the European countries.

Issues of significant flood risk definition, use of historical flood data and extreme flood definition are those of particular interest for discussion and information exchange. Also discussion on reporting sheets and formats, that are expected to propose in early 2009, should be brought on the table as soon as possible.

Definition of ‘potential significant flood risk’ (Article 5) seems to be a key issue in PFRA completion. Although that definition remains fully in the responsibility of Member states, the information exchange on particular Member states´ intention in that question seems valuable in case of international river basins.

One of the PFRA requirements is a description of the floods which have occurred in the past and which had significant adverse impacts (Article 4, b & c). The way how to effectively describe historical floods and their adverse consequences and how to use this information in PFRA, flood mappings and in flood risk management plans, creates a field for intense exchange of information on good practices. The same could be said about the long-term developments impact on flood risk, which has not been a subject to assessment in many countries so far. Last but not least, provision for flood protection measures and residual risk in significant flood risk definition and PFRA is still an issue for effective knowledge and experience share.

Workshop Objectives and Outputs

The core objectives of the workshop were:

·  To compile the overview on state of the understanding of key issues of Preliminary flood risk assessment among the Member states

·  To discuss and exchange information on good practices on PFRA

·  To draw conclusions and proposals on Preliminary flood risk assessment good practices with respect to implementation process of Floods Directive

·  To report such conclusions and proposals to WG F for consideration

·  To detect the necessity of PFRA and the necessity of review of the PFRA (Art. 4, 13, 14).

The output of the workshop consists of:

·  The papers and questionnaire evaluation presented at the workshop,

·  Overview on the state of the understanding of key issues of Preliminary flood risk assessment among the Member states (based on questionnaire evaluation),

·  Summaries of the discussions held, in particular conclusions and recommendations for the implementation of PFRA stage of Floods Directive,

·  An outline of issues requiring further analysis and discussion, workshop report will be presented to WG F.

Workshop Structure

The workshop comprised series of thematic sessions to cover series of key issues (see below). A short questionnaire was distributed prior to Workshop to collect some basic information on understanding of unclear issues among the Member States. Questionnaire evaluation was presented in the workshop to introduce topics and discussion. Evaluation is part of the final report.

Each session comprised a brief plenary session with a small number of submitted papers, reports based on received questionnaires, followed by breakout workgroup sessions to discuss the key issues of that session. The discussion was stimulated by set of questions to be answered. Thus the focus of the breakout sessions was to identify key problems related to discussed issue, and to set statements or recommendations addressing these problems and questions. Plenary sessions were held to summarize the conclusions of the workgroups and provide aforum for common discussion.

Session Themes

1.  How to present and use the historical floods data for future? (Chapter II Article 4 (b, c))

2.  How to cope with flood protection measures and residual risk? (Chapter II Article 4 (d))

3.  Understanding of ´potential significant flood risk´(Chapter II Article 5)

4.  Long term developments (Chapter II Article 4 (d))

5.  Results, information, reporting:

·  Results and information to be available to public and to EC (Chapter IV Article 10)

·  What is the useful scope and detail of reporting? (Chapter III)

6.  Flood risk management planning (Chapter IV)

Report Structure

This Workshop Report summarises the proceedings and principal conclusions and recommendations as expressed at the Workshop. It further provides the evaluation of questionnaires (that were distributed prior to workshop), broader discussion summary and apendix of „List of flood types” compiled after the workshop to fulfil one of the Workshop conclusions.

The report structure was rearrange to suit proposed template of workshop reports as prepared and agreed by WG F on its November 2009 meeting. Thus the report provides Executive summary. In following chapters basic Workshop informations are mentioned and report on sessions is summarized (including abstracts and key issues arising from break-out discussions), as well as Workshop Conclusions are presented. Appendices containing Workshop Programme and List of Delegates attending the Workshop are part of the main report, while other Workshop outcomes (Questionnaires evaluation, list of hyperlinks to full transcripts of papers and presentations presented at CIRCA) are presented in separate apendix. Both document (main report and apendix) are available via CIRCA.