Land use and flood protection: contrasting approaches and outcomes in France and in England and Wales

The problems of the late implementation of the legal prevention measures for flood risk

“…Moreover, it is a fact that the urbanism in the flood-prone areas has been developed within the three past decades in spite of the legal provisions. [7], the PER/PPR procedures seem to have avoided most of the times urban land uses in the high hazard areas, but not in the lower risk areas or fail to succeed in promoting damage reduction for existing buildings. So, the main actual problem is the vulnerability of the constructions and consequently the people present within these constructions.…”

“…The vulnerability comes also from the non-compliance of the owners with the PPR prescriptions, because the damages are mostly compensated thanks to the insurance mechanism. So, the compensation occurs irrespective of conformity with the buildings [7].…”

“…The delay for a PPR project to be approved allows the Mayors negotiating the delineation of the zoning, putting in the balance the economic development and the attractiveness of the territory [14]. The floodplain development brings a sort of ³UHZDUGV´ a private profit for individuals through increased land values and higher levels of property-based community taxes for local government, derived from increased employment, regeneration and other local economic change [7]. In this context, it seems that each flood event has been quickly forgotten in the memory of the public authorities and the people living in flood-prone areas.…”

“…This did not encourage the public authorities to enforce the prevention policy at a local scale and to tighten the control of urban development in flood-prone areas. The public authorities forgot the sought-after link between damage compensation and flood prevention measures, as prescribed in the 1982 Compensation Law [7].…”

“…Besides, the control of urban development in floodprone areas and the flood mitigation for the buildings and activities already sited in these areas are one of the problems that the public authorities have to cope with and for which they have to set adapted prevention policies. As Pottier et al [7] noticed, the traditional solution to these problems is to try to use land use planning or building regulation systems or both to prevent the conversion of areas liable to flooding to urban land uses. The 2007 Directive concerning flood management has imposed for all the member States to elaborate flood management plans, which concern in particular measures ³to reduce the probability of flooding and its consequences and address all phases of the flood risk management cycle, focusing particularly on preventing damages by avoiding constructions of houses and industries in present and future flood-prone areas or by adapting future developments to the risk of IORRGLQJ´.…”