Reasoning about Uncertainty in Flood Risk Governance

The number and impact of catastrophic floods have increased significantly in the last decade, endangering both human lives and the environment. Although there is a broad consensus that the probability and potential impacts of flooding are increasing in many areas of the world, the conditions under which flooding occurs are still uncertain in several ways. In this chapter, I explore how argumentative strategies for framing, timing, goal setting, and dealing with value uncertainty are being employed or can be employed in flood risk governance to deal with these uncertainties. On the basis of a discussion of the different strategies, I sketch a tentative outlook for flood risk governance in the 21st century, for which I derive some important lessons concerning the distribution of responsibilities, the political dimension of flood risk governance, and the use of participatory approaches.