Improving the Us Army Corps of Engineers' Contribution to Flood Risk Management (PAP014371)

Código

PAP014371

Autores

Paul Scodari

Tema

Urban Floods

Resumo

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) is the principal U.S. federal agency responsible for planning and constructing flood and coastal storm damage reduction (F&CSDR) infrastructure, and for managing part of that built infrastructure. Historically, the F&CSDR program with its focus on flood hazard reduction was viewed as the centerpiece of federal responsibility for flood damage reduction; however, the inflation-adjusted federal budget for F&CSDR has fallen significantly over time. As the F&CSDR budget fell, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) was implemented and grew in scope and importance. Today, more than 20,000 communities participate in the NFIP, which emphasizes the responsibility of communities (local governments) to reduce flood risk through land use regulation, and the responsibility of individuals (households and businesses) to manage their residual risk by purchasing flood insurance. Looking ahead, and recognizing these changing circumstances, the USACE is now embracing the need for "shared responsibility" in flood risk management. This paper presents the results of a USACE study to investigate policy and program changes that would allow the USACE to be more effective in sharing responsibility for flood risk management decision making. The report proposes a conceptual framework calling for "risk informed and cost responsible" (RICR) decision-making by communities and individuals. A similar a RICR-based policy framework was first articulated decades ago in a seminal report by a United States federal task force chaired by Gilbert White. To assure that communities and individuals are fully risk informed requires that they: 1) have access to the same information about the likelihood and consequences of flooding as that available to technical experts; 2) have access to information on actions they could take to reduce risk and manage residual risk, and; 3) understand the current capacity of federal and non-federal programs to provide pre-flood risk reduction and management assistance as well as post-flood assistance. Cost responsible choices are defined in this report as choices that comply with the existing legal and regulatory regimes in place at the time that the choices are made, which recognizes that the rules that establish cost responsibility may allow for the transfer of some share of the financial, risk, or environmental costs from communities and individuals to others. The RICR framework is used to develop recommendations to make shared responsibility an operationally meaningful policy objective. The recommendations fall into two areas. One area focuses on what the USACE can do to increase the public's understanding of current and future flood risk, especially in places where the USACE has constructed F&CSDR projects in the past. A second area includes recommendations for making the most cost-effective use of a limited USACE budget while promoting cost responsible decisions by communities and individuals related to floodplain land use and the adoption of risk reduction and residual risk management actions.