Best practices on

flood and drought

risk management
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This publication has been developed under the framework of project CliMWaR (Enhancing
Climate Services for Improved Water Resources Management in Vulnerable Regions
to Climate Change: Case Studies from Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean),
made possible with the support of UNESCO/Flanders Fund-in-Trust for the support of
UNESCO’s activities in the field of science (FUST).

Authors: Jan Cools, University of Antwerp, Anil Mishra, UNESCO, Koen Verbist, UNESCO

Editor: Rita Marteleira, UNESCO

Reviewer: Will Logan, ICIWaRM
Acknowledgements: Paulina Marcela Ramírez Quevedo, UNESCO, Hong Huynh, UNESCO,
Barbara Kavuma, UNESCO, Natalia Tolochko, UNESCO, Patrycja Breskvar, UNESCO

Cover photos: Drought in Sindh province, Pakistan – Shutterstock

Floods in Sindh province, Pakistan – DFID/Flickr

Graphic & cover design: Julia Cheftel

Printed by: UNESCO

Printed in Paris, France

SC-2023/HYD/PI/1 Rev.
 SHORT SUMMARY

Identifying flood and

drought management
tools in the face of climatic
uncertainty
Climate change impacts are mostly felt through the water cycle, such as extreme weather
events, that may trigger floods and droughts. From 2000 to 2020, floods and droughts
killed more than 166 thousand people worldwide and inflicted damages in the magnitude
of hundreds of millions of dollars.

Recent floods show that the current portfolio

of instruments such as flood risk maps,

166
contingency plans or early warning systems
are insufficient to prevent disasters in the
face of climate uncertainty. A proactive,
coordinated approach is essential to reduce
hydroclimatic disaster risk.
thousand people
This publication compiles the best practices
in flood and drought management, killed worldwide
providing a critical analysis and identifying
the challenges in their adoption and by floods and droughts
recommendations for their upscaling.
in 20 years

“Since wars begin in the minds of men and

women it is in the minds of men and women
that the defences of peace must be constructed”
Best practices on
flood and drought
risk management
Authors
Jan Cools, Anil Mishra, Koen Verbist

Editor
Rita Marteleira

Reviewer
Will Logan

Best practices on flood and drought risk management 3

 Table of Contents

Short summary 1

Foreword 5

1. Towards pro-active disaster risk management 6

2. Challenges for flood and drought risk management 12

3. Objectives and approach 14

4. Best practices for flood and drought risk management 15

4.1. Hazard and risk maps 15
4.2. Early warning systems and real-time monitors 19
4.3. Payment schemes for disaster recovery 21
4.4. Bottom-up and participatory approaches 23

5. Recommendations 29

6. Conclusions 31

7. References 32

4 Best practices on flood and drought risk management

Foreword
Water presence and absence have shaped the settlement and development of communities
since early times. When felt for more extended periods of time, water scarcity was the
cause of major socioeconomic disruptions and even the decline of well-established
civilisations such as the Egyptian Old Kingdom, the Indus Valley or the Akkadian Empire.

In present times, anthropologically caused climate change exacerbates extreme weather

events, impacting communities and ecosystems and damaging critical infrastructure. From
2000 through 2020, floods and droughts killed more than 166 thousand people, affected
another 3 billion and inflicted total economic damage in the magnitude of hundreds of
million dollars. However, these impacts are not homogeneously felt, with vulnerable
communities in developing countries being often hit worst. Over the last decade, human
mortality from floods, droughts and storms was 15 times higher in vulnerable areas, and
flood- and drought-related food insecurity has increased in Africa and Latin America.

The latest IPCC 6th Assessment Report (August 2021) confirmed that “climate change is
intensifying the water cycle”, and the cascading effects of that variability will bring more
associated flooding and drought. The adaptation chapter of the same report, published
earlier this year (February 2022), concluded that adaptation to water-related risks and
impacts should be behind major adaptation policies.

This publication aimed at providing a critical analysis of current flood and drought
management practices. Recommendations include the development of context-specific
socio-economic vulnerability assessments and more systematic and comprehensive
multi-hazard risk assessments. It highlights the importance of improving the buy-in of
end-users of hazard and risk maps and tools for impact assessment, and capacity building
of vulnerable communities. Bottom-up approaches emerge as solutions to facilitate
collaborative agreement and response to early warning systems.

It was developed in the context of UNESCO’s project CliMWaR (Enhancing Climate Services
for Improved Water Resources Management in Vulnerable Regions to Climate Change:
Case studies from Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean) running since 2018, funded
by the UNESCO/Flanders Fund-in-Trust for the support of UNESCO’s activities in the field
of Science (FUST).

The ninth phase of UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Hydrological Programme (IHP-IX 2022-

2029), devoted to promoting ‘Science for a Water Secure World in a Changing Environment’,
mentions extreme events such as droughts and floods as main global challenges. One of aims
of IHP during that period includes the improvement of scientific knowledge, methodologies
and tools in addressing water-related disasters through timely forecasting.

In the face of the recurrent and increasing extreme flooding, drought and wildfires that
responsible for casualties and extensive damage worldwide as witnesses during 2021 and
2022, it is urgent to prioritize the adoption of effective adaptation policies. Countries
and cross-scale decision-makers are encouraged to learn from the recommendations
published herewith to support resilience building to climate change impacts, particularly
floods and droughts. This publication is aimed at sensitizing policymakers to move towards
proactive climate risk management contributing to the awareness raising element of
the Conference on the Midterm Comprehensive Review of the Implementation of the
Objectives of the International Decade for Action on Water for Sustainable Development,
to be convened in New York from 22 to 24 of March, 2023.

Abou Amani
Best practices on flood and drought risk management 5
 1. Towards pro-active disaster
risk management
Historically, crisis management responses have been the main approach to disaster risk
reduction and management (DRRM), with actions being triggered only once a natural
disaster was already on course. With limited time, and seemingly starting from scratch
with each disaster, this approach is often uncoordinated, costly, and resulting in ad hoc,
ineffective measures. The acknowledgement that a more efficient approach can avoid
damage and victims has led to a paradigm shift from reactive to pro-active disaster risk
management.

Pro-active disaster risk management adds substantive pre-emergency planning and

activities, in particular to enhance disaster prevention and preparedness, but also to
facilitate a more complete and faster recovery (see Figure 1). Following the definition of
Vogt et al. (2018), specifically tailored for drought risk management but just as applicable
for flooding, a pro-active approach includes the design of measures in advance, supported
by related planning tools and stakeholder participation. The pro-active approach envisages
both short- and long-term measures.

Disaster prevention includes, among other elements, better land use planning, smart
water resources management or nature-based solutions. Disaster preparedness aims to
train communities and authorities on how to react to emergencies, preferably based on
an understanding of the hazards they might face. In particular, the preparedness phase
includes risk analysis and monitoring systems for a timely warning of drought and flood
conditions, the identification of vulnerable communities and the planning of necessary
measures to prevent or minimize impacts in advance.

• Risk analysis

• Land use planning • Early warning systems

Prevention Preparedness
• Nature-based solutions • Emergency planning
• Water regulation works • Public awareness
(drainage, storage)
• Recycling of water
Disaster risk
Disaster event
Management cycle

Emergency
Recovery
Response

• Clean-up and restoration of

infrastructure & ecosystems • Disaster alert and communication
• Physical interventions and/or rescue
• Disaster financial assistance
• Temporary or permanent relocation • Damage mitigation

Figure 1 Disaster Management Cycle, and typical activities under each phase

6 Best practices on flood and drought risk management

In the aftermath of a hazardous event, effective post-disaster reconstruction, restoration
and recovery can contribute to safer, more sustainable and resilient communities.
Recovery investments go beyond infrastructure, also focusing on rebuilding peoples’
livelihoods and promote ecosystem balance. Recovery investments are, therefore, also to
be seen as relevant tools in DRRM – in fact, pro-active DRRM requires that all phases of
the disaster risk management cycle be addressed. Weak links in the disaster management
cycle could be a cause for severe consequences, even if most instruments are in place, as
demonstrated by the 2021 European summer flood (Box 1).

Box 1 A flood disaster in Europe summer of 2021

Extreme rainfall over Europe between 12-15th of July 2021 resulted in extreme flooding
in Belgium, Germany, Luxemburg, the Netherlands, Austria and Switzerland. Later on,
on 24-25th of July, thunderstorms caused floods in London, Germany and Switzerland. A
second flood wave also hit Belgium on 27th of July, simultaneous with flooding in the North
of Italy. More than 150 mm of rain fell in 24h in eastern Belgium and western Germany,
with a maximum of 271 mm in 48h in the Belgian village of Jalhay (almost 3 times the
average rainfall for the month of July) (KMI, 2021). In the German city of Cologne, 154
mm fell in a nine-hour period. The Belgian rainfall forecast is shown in Figure 2, the EFAS
forecast in Figure 3.

Figure 2 Maximum 24h rainfall forecast of 14th of July, 2021 by the Belgian
Meteorological Service (KMI, 2021)

Best practices on flood and drought risk management 7

 Figure 3 EFAS forecast for the Liège region (Belgium), as published in the Belgian
newspaper De Standaard (red = high flood intensity, purple = extreme
flood intensity)

In particular, eastern Belgium and western and southern Germany were hit hard, resulting
in 30 and 170 casualties, respectively (Reuters, 2021 and RTBF, 2021). The insured losses
in Germany, according to the German Insurance Association could reach as much as 5
billion Euros (Davies, 2021). Even though the European Flood Alert System (EFAS), as
well as the Belgian and German weather service did send out warnings, it did not result in
adequate action at the local level. Local authorities and citizens were caught by surprise
and little time was available to take action. The first EFAS alert for the Rhine river,
affecting Germany and Switzerland, was sent to the relevant national authorities on
10th of July, 4 days ahead of the flood (EFAS, 2021). Alerts for the Meuse river (Belgium,
Germany) were sent starting on 12th of July. With the continuously updated forecasts,
more than 25 notifications were sent for specific regions of the Rhine and Meuse River
basins in the following days until 14th of July. Similar notifications were sent by the Belgian
and German weather services. Therefore, in this case study, the available technology did
work but triggered insufficient action.
The 2021 summer floods in Europe showed that a portfolio of instruments, like flood risk
management maps, contingency plans, retention basins, real-time monitoring and early
warning systems on their own do not prevent disasters from happening. The emergency
response and post-emergency recovery, in particular at the local level in Belgium and
Germany, were inefficient and uncoordinated. With extreme and unprecedented rainfall
taking place in the middle of summer holidays, when key staff may have been off duty,
a limited trust in the issued weather forecasts and flood alerts and ineffective risk
communication also seems to have contributed to the magnitude of the disaster.
First signals on what went wrong in Belgium and Germany have been broadcasted in
various media channels. An interview-based analysis by Politico showed that Belgium

8 Best practices on flood and drought risk management

and Germany were unprepared to respond to rainfall in such quantity across such
as large area. Politico stated that there was a failure in the information chain that is
supposed to translate warnings from flood forecasters into instructions for citizens
in danger. Exactly where that chain fractured is unclear and likely varied across the
affected regions. Overall, the breakdown occurred after alerts were passed to regional
and local authorities. Politico suggested that complacency, poor decision making and
underestimation of risk might have compounded an already drastic situation. Inefficient
coordination among actors, lack of trust in issued alerts and limited knowledge on how
to respond to an alert are other possible reasons (Mathiesen, et al., 2021).
A major judgment error in Belgium was related to the emptying of Lake Eupen, an artificial
lake on the Vesdre river, able to hold 25 million cubic meters of water. Wary of a potential
drought later in summer, the authorities responsible for the management of the lake
did not want to release the stored water until the 14th of July, when the dam was full and
about to collapse. The emergency release of excess water resulted in two flood waves
in downstream villages. The houses of about 12,000 people in Verviers and Pepinster
were so heavily damaged the population could not return to their houses. The villages
had no access to drinking water and electricity for about a month. This example also
evidences a lack of coordination: two other artificial lakes in the vicinity were emptied
preventively and provided the needed storage to their respective catchment when the
extreme rainfall arrived. A similar decision could have been made for Lake Eupen, which
could have prevented the flood waves downstream.

The pro-active approach on disaster risk reduction is present in relevant international

agendas: agreed in 2015 under the UN Sendai Framework, has been included in the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and pointed as a key aspect for the provision of
climate resilient development under the Paris Agreement. Dedicated frameworks and
programmes have been developed specifically for floods and droughts, respectively the
Integrated Drought Management Programme (IDMP)1 and the Associated Programme on
Flood Management (APFM)2. An overview is provided in Box 2.

Box 2 International frameworks on flood and drought risk

management

Priorities of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction

Disaster risk reduction aims at preventing new and reducing existing disaster risks,
and at managing residual risk, all of which contribute to strengthening resilience and
therefore to the achievement of sustainable development. The priorities of the Sendai
Framework are:
1. Understanding disaster risk;
2. Strengthening disaster risk governance to manage disaster risk;
3. Investing in disaster reduction for resilience; and
4. Enhancing disaster preparedness for an effective response and to “build
back better.”

1 https://www.droughtmanagement.info/
2 https://www.floodmanagement.info/

Best practices on flood and drought risk management 9

 Pillars of Integrated Drought Management (IDM)
The Integrated Drought Management framework seeks to mitigate drought risk and
build drought resilience by addressing multiple components of drought management,
including disaster risk reduction, climate adaptation strategies and national water
policies. IDM accounts for the needs of all stakeholders affected by drought. Three pillars
of IDM, defined by the IDMP, form the building blocks of a successful drought policy:
1. Monitoring & early warning;
2. Vulnerability & Impact Assessment; and
3. Mitigation, preparedness & response.

Elements of Integrated Flood Management (IFM)

APFM defines IFM as a process of promoting an integrated approach to flood
management. It applies to land and water resources in a river basin, within the context
of Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) and aims at maximizing the
net benefits from the use of floodplains and minimizing loss of life from flooding. Six
elements are listed for effectively managing floods:
1. Manage the water cycle as a whole;
2. Integrate land and water management;
3. Manage risk and uncertainty;
4. Adopt a best mix of strategies;
5. Ensure a participatory approach; and
6. Adopt integrated hazard management approaches.

These frameworks stress the importance of covering all phases of the DRRM cycle, from
strengthened prevention and preparedness to better emergency response and recovery.
An increased understanding of the flood and drought risk is highlighted, together with
improved evidence-based governance and planning, and reinforced cooperation and
coordination with other sectors and amongst actors, including citizens. Overall, in view
of the likely impact (beneficial or adverse) of measures under one policy to another, the
integration and streamlining of various policies and investments is of key importance.

Bringing a pro-active approach to flood and drought risk management into practice
requires a number of interconnected steps, and is not without challenges. The increasing
threat from hydro-climatic extremes worldwide due to climate change and population
growth argues for a better use of what is already available and investments in the most
important missing links. The required steps to effectively manage flood and drought risk
are elaborated in the EPIC (Enable, Plan, Invest, Control) Response framework (Browder,
et al., 2021), building further on the IDMP and AFMP programmes, and in line with the
disaster risk management cycle. The EPIC Response Framework focuses specifically on the
governance part of managing drought and floods together, rather than as a standalone
approach in which proposed measures may be inconsistent with each other. The key
elements of an EPIC Response are shown in Table 1, together with the data requirements
for each of the elements.

10 Best practices on flood and drought risk management

Table 1 Elements of a pro-active approach to flood and drought risk management,
and their data requirements (based on the EPIC framework)

Key elements Data requirements

Enabling environment of policies, • Information on the needs, organisational

laws, agencies, strategic plans, approach and expertise of various actors:
participation, and information. government (multiple levels and domains), the
private sector, civil society and citizens
Planning at multiple and nested
• Insights on how to best inform, prepare and
geographical levels to ensure that
trigger responses from actors
mitigation measures become
higher priorities.

Investing in healthy watersheds • Data on the cost-effectiveness of measures to

and water infrastructure to reduce reduce the hazard, and socio-economic impact,
hazards from both floods and locally but also at a basin level
droughts. • Insights on trade-offs and synergies of
measures, and related acceptance and priority
of investments by actors

Controlling water use and • Water cycle, including water demand and
floodplain development to supply at local and basin level
reduce exposure and minimize • Risk and vulnerability assessment for specific
vulnerabilities. sectors and communities

Responding better to floods and • Historic drought and flood risk maps, time
droughts through more effective series and probabilities
monitoring, response, and • Real-time forecast of flood and drought
recovery. conditions
• Inventory of damages

Planning helps to prioritize investments to mitigate risks and provides a roadmap for
managing land and water resources. Managing land and water, in its turn, helps to reduce
the exposure and vulnerability of people and assets at risk from floods and droughts.
The EPIC Response authors expect that a country which adopts this framework should
be well positioned to handle risks when an extreme event strikes, through effective early
warning, response and recovery programs. The 2021 summer floods in Europe, however,
showed that even if all elements are in place, a disaster can occur.

Best practices on flood and drought risk management 11

 2. Challenges for flood and
drought risk management
The challenges for flood and drought risk management are numerous, ranging from
estimations of risk, operating soft- and hardware in real-time, coordination and
cooperation of people and organisations, communication of uncertain conditions and
financial and social mechanisms to facilitate recovery. Challenges can be associated with
each specific link of the disaster risk reduction chain, but also with the interlinkages and
coordination of the overall approach.

An expert webinar, hosted by UNESCO in June 2021, gathered experts from academia,
the private sector and governmental agencies, and facilitated the identification of the
main challenges in flood and drought risk management. The webinar focused on the
identification of challenges and best practices to achieve the buy-in of end-users, and a
sustainable uptake of the tools and data for actual decision-making in flood and drought
risk management. One of its main outcomes was the conclusion that more attention is
to be given to convincing and informing people instead of improving technical aspects
of data and models. Creating ownership, buy-in, trust and institutional coordination
are essential keywords to enable a better use of flood and drought risk data and tools
in decision-making. A collaborative process is hence needed, not only to gather and
integrate the typically fragmented data, but also to facilitate the dialogue and enhance
decision-making based on that information. Substantial effort remains needed to
provide data at a finer scale, either through down-scaling or bottom-up assessments.
Significant gaps relevant to operational decision-making also hinder the impact of
measures, in particular on the societal aspects of risk, the capacity of decision makers
to identify and interpret uncertainties, and the integration of flood and drought risk
management with spatial planning.

A concise literature review on the challenges for flood and drought risk management
yielded similar results to those from the webinar. The 2021 UN Special Report on
Drought (UNDRR, 2021) highlights how the limited knowledge on possible impacts,
poor assessments of vulnerabilities and costs, little coordination at national and regional
levels, and lack of awareness on policy options are key impediments to effective drought
management. Along the same lines, specifically for drought management in Africa and
Latin America, Verbist et al. (2016) refers the lack of access to relevant early warning
information, the difficulties in identifying vulnerable communities and the integration of
available data into drought management policies.

The challenges for flood risk management described in the APFM concept note (WMO,
2009) remain relevant. In summary, flood risk management planning is to become more
evidence-based, adaptive, participatory and better coordinated, in particular with land
use and water management planning. Increasing populations in hazardous zones, as a
result of inadequate land use and urban management are likely to increase flood impacts.
Expensive protective infrastructures may furthermore be needed, but they also have a
high potential for lock-in. Similarly, dikes may be sufficient under current flood risk, but
may be inadequate under future conditions. To avoid lock-in and inaction while remaining
agile, flood risk management has to become adapive.

12 Best practices on flood and drought risk management

Adaptive management takes the many uncertainties into account, and minimises regret for
the future, both by under- and over-investing. It also requires the continuous monitoring
on whether expected targets are on track, or wehether more or different action is needed.

The UNDRR Words in Action report (2020) also mentions the challenges and essentials to
develop DRRM strategies at a local scale – the scale where the impacts of disasters are most
immediately felt, where local actors are the first responders and where the government
and communities can work together to better fit local actions to everyday life, hand-in-
hand with local development and environmental management. Local scale DRR, however,
is also challenging, as it requires a context-specific and shared understanding of disaster
risk, effective risk governance and financial resources to be able to plan and act.

Top-down flood risk management plans often do not lead to effective vulnerability
reduction. In that context, a participatory, bottom-up approach is needed to develop
ownership, readiness and support of local actors while conflicts with land owners can
be minimised or circumvented. Governments alone cannot deal with DRR: all actors,
from national to local governments, civil society organizations, academics, professional
associations, the private sector, international donors and each and every citizen, have a
role to play in the decision-making, planning and implementation process of DRR. A so-
called whole-of-society approach is to be followed in which actors in varying capacities
and degrees of responsibility are engaged in reducing disaster risks and building disaster
resilience in their local areas.

The EPIC framework states that the whole-of-society approach is one of the most
important and at the same time most complex governance challenges of the 21st
century. Specific challenges include the need for a ‘joined-up’ government effort and
the importance of engaging the groups that are typically underrepresented and often
hit the hardest: women, minorities, the elderly and the poor. A shared understanding of
the flood and drought risk is essential to achieve consensus on the vision and options to
increase resilience, but not easy to achieve, especially when various sources of knowledge
are scattered over various organisations and individuals, having various levels of detail,
spatial resolution and quality.

To address such challenges, the EPIC framework proposes a governance approach to

integrate flood and drought risk management actions, preferably in a river basin planning
approach. The latter is in line with the multi-hazard approach that is included in the Sendai
Framework. Yet, in practice, flood and drought risks are planned separately by different
organisations, and measures taken sometimes contradict each other. Research by Ward
and others (2020) added that most research on hydrological risks focuses either on flood
risk or drought risk, while floods and droughts are actually two extremes of the same
hydrological cycle.

Addressing the impacts of climate change on the water cycle in general, and more
specifically on floods and droughts, is of increasing importance. The sixth IPCC Assessment
Report (IPCC, 2021) and UNWATER (2020) came to reinforce that climate change will
aggravate the situation of some currently water-stressed regions, and generate water
stress in regions where water resources are still abundant today. Climate change is likely
to cause shifts in seasonal water availability throughout the year in several regions.
Floods and droughts are expected to increase frequency and magnitude. Despite the
mounting evidence that climate change is affecting the global hydrological cycle, much
uncertainty remains when projecting its impacts over smaller geographical and temporal
scales. An important challenge, however, is to practically manage uncertainty in flood and
drought risk planning, while also facilitating the streamlining with other investments in

Best practices on flood and drought risk management 13

 climate adaptation and sustainable development. Once again, bottom-up participatory
approaches can provide value, especially in handling uncertainty, but also in developing
a shared vision and agreeing on robust and acceptable solutions. The CRIDA approach
provides an operational framework to bring climate change uncertainty into water
resources planning through a bottom-up approach.

To progress towards a resilient future-proof society, it is clear that an institutional and

societal transition is needed. The challenges for flood risk management are to a large
degree similar to the challenges in drought risk management, and connected to the broader
challenge of inclusive and evidence-based decision making under uncertainty, while aiming
to engage local communities and coordinate with land and water management, climate
change adaptation and sustainable development.

3. Objectives and approach

This publication aims to provide a critical analysis between traditional and emerging
approaches to Integrated Flood Risk Management (IFRM) and Integrated Drought Risk
Management (IDRM). Strengths and weaknesses in the understanding and applicability
of tools and data for flood and drought risk management are provided, in addition to
recommendations for their enhanced applicability.

The contents of publication were reinforced by the inputs of a global expert webinar,
hosted by UNESCO in June 2021, with the participation of 21 stakeholders (of which 5
women) from 11 countries with various backgrounds (private, academic, governmental
etc). The webinar provided insights on the most prominent challenges for evidence-based
flood and drought risk management, while also allowing the collection of best practices.
Additional inputs were added to the challenges and best practices for flood and drought
risk management identified during the webinar, either from direct contact with some of
the participants and desk review.

14 Best practices on flood and drought risk management

4. Best practices for flood and
drought risk management
The European floods of 2021 exemplified that working together and fitting together all
aspects of pro-active flood and drought risk management is important to reduce the risk
to disasters. The example also showcased a lot of advancements in monitoring tools that
have been made, not only in Europe but worldwide. Over the last decade, a number of
tools and online data platforms have become available for flood and drought risk analysis
and management. Each tool and online platform provides a relevant contribution to the
question of who or what is at risk in a given moment. The answers to those questions
are yet uncertain, and pieces of the puzzle remain to be stitched together by flood and
drought risk managers.

Initial efforts focused on understanding historically flood and drought hazards, i.e.,
understanding the intensity and frequency of floods and droughts in space and time:
1. To understand the potential damage and casualties of a particular hazard, haz-
ard maps are translated into risk maps by overlaying the hazard maps with so-
cio-economic data layers. The combination of hazard maps resulted in multi-haz-
ard maps, where an aggregated index provides an indication of the overall
vulnerability of a location. What-if scenarios cover the long-term impact of cli-
mate change and/or also short-term impacts of risk mitigation measures.
2. The availability of satellite data and real-time monitoring resulted in the transi-
tion from historic hazard mapping into real-time monitoring and early warning
systems (EWS) at a global, continental and national scale.
3. The need for a more effective emergency response and faster recovery points
toward the need for an easier and more transparent emergency response and
recovery pay-out.
4. The interest in better integrated, accessible and context-specific data has led, on
one hand, to a technical answer (interoperable, integrated and open-source data
platforms), and on the other hand to the emergence of bottom-up participatory
approaches (in which multiple actors are engaged to co-develop a common risk
understanding and context-specific risk management approach).
These four elements are covered in depth in the following sections.

4.1. Hazard and risk maps

Flood hazard maps delineate the areas that either were flooded historically or may flood
in the future, under specific return periods. Depending on the scale and spatial resolution
of the flood hazard map, different modelling approaches have been used to convert
rainfall data into flooding areas. Hydrological (rainfall-runoff) models are used for larger
areas (often at the scale of river basins) whereas hydraulic models are used to simulate
small-scale high-resolution flow patterns (e.g., stormwater in cities). To understand the
potential damage and other losses related to a particular flood hazard, hazard maps are
translated into risk maps by overlaying the flood hazard map with a vulnerability map
(also called exposure map). The reasoning behind that is the fact that vulnerable areas

Best practices on flood and drought risk management 15

 would likely suffer even from a minor flood, while even a major flood would not cause
much hardship in areas with a low population density. Flood risk is, hence, proportionate
to the likelihood of a flood and the vulnerability of those in the flooded area.

Drought hazard and risk maps are developed, in broad terms, in a similar fashion to flood
hazard and risk maps. Drought risk is proportional to the assets that are exposed to a
drought hazard. The greater complexity of droughts, and their slow onset, low visibility
and creeping and cascading impacts, however, make it methodologically more challenging
to understand what a particular rainfall deficit means in terms of the impact on landscapes,
vegetation, river basins and societies. Box 3 provides examples of good practices in hazard
and risk mapping.

Box 3 Best practices in flood and drought hazard and risk mapping

A legal requirement for flood hazard and risk mapping in Europe

Since 2015, the EU member states have been legally required, under the Floods Directive3,
to develop flood hazard and risk maps. The vulnerability map overlayed with hazard maps
is commonly a static map of populated areas and critical infrastructures. Flood risk maps,
therefore, mainly give an indication of which streets, schools, hospitals, elderly houses,
amongst others, are located in flood-prone areas and what is their probability of flooding.
They also provide insights on which areas, due to flood risk, are to be avoided for new
developments. Flood hazard and risk maps are required to be updated every six years. In
contrast, the development of drought hazard and risk maps in Europe is not mandatory.

Making sense of drought indicators

An historical drought frequency analysis and associated minimum and maximum expected
rainfall for various return periods, is a basic requirement to understand drought hazards.
The Drought Atlas for Latin America and the Caribbean4, online since 2013, was then
an innovative, cross-border data service (Núñez Cobo and Verbist, 2018). To address
the need for harmonisation in drought hazard analysis and increased knowledge on the
impact of meteorological drought on landscapes, vegetation and river basins, a number
of drought indicators and monitoring systems were developed by the authors. Indicators
relate to rainfall, hydrology, temperature, soil moisture and vegetation response (WMO
and GWP, 2016).
The US drought risk atlas5, for example, quantifies drought indicators for a long series
of weather data for more than 4,000 locations in the United States. In its turn, the
European Drought Observatory (EDO)6 uses the Combined Drought Indicator (CDI) to
understand the level of agricultural drought. CDI is often monitored in real-time, and
it derives from the combination of three drought indicators, namely the Standardized
Precipitation Index (SPI), the Soil Moisture Anomaly (SMA), and the FAPAR Anomaly
(drought impact on vegetation canopies). To facilitate a better understanding of CDI
values, especially for emergency response purposes, a classification scheme is used with
the following levels: watch, warning, alert, partial recovery and full recovery.

3 https://ec.europa.eu/environment/water/flood_risk/overview.htm
4 http://www.climatedatalibrary.cl/CAZALAC/maproom/Historical/index.html
5 https://droughtatlas.unl.edu/
6 https://edo.jrc.ec.europa.eu/edov2/php/index.php?id=1000

16 Best practices on flood and drought risk management

Better insights on socio-economic vulnerability
Additional socio-economic granularity at a local scale can be added to the flood and drought
risk maps by connecting the vulnerability map to depth-damage functions (Glas, et al.,
2019). For each return period, the potential damage at a specific location is quantified. By
doing so, the qualitative flood risk map is translated onto a monetised risk map. In Figure 4,
an example of such maps are given for communities in Eastern Zimbabwe that are often
affected by floods driven by large cyclones. It shows an example of annual average damage
expected, as well as flooding frequency of schools and other infrastructure.

© UNESCO BE-RESILIENT Program, 2021

Figure 4: a) Flooding Annual Average Damage for the different wards in the
Chimanimani and Chipinge Districts in Zimbabwe and
b) schools affected by flooding with different return periods

Damage functions are mostly used by insurance companies to calculate their insurance
assets and, recently, also to support the development of novel pay-out schemes. Social
vulnerability is typically harder to capture in flood risk maps. While, theoretically, improving
flood-resilience requires targeting of the more vulnerable groups, in practice it is often
time-consuming to identify and characterise such groups. Poor households, for example,
are underrepresented in potential damage maps as their assets have low monetary value.
A review of assessing social vulnerability to floods is provided by Rufat et al. (2015).
As an example, the Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas7 provides a holistic mapping of water risks
at a global scale. This risk atlas is often used for demonstrative purposes, to compare
regions and countries in terms of water risk. Physical flood (riverine and coastal) and
drought hazard data is connected to the exposure and vulnerability of the population,
water use related indicators, covering quantity (water stress, groundwater table decline)
and quality (untreated connected wastewater and the coastal eutrophication potential),
access to safe drinking water and sanitation and reputational risks for conducting
business (Aqueduct, 2021).

7 https://www.wri.org/applications/aqueduct/water-risk-atlas/#/?advanced=false&basemap=hy-
dro&indicator=w_awr_def_tot_cat&lat=30&lng=-80&mapMode=view&month=1&opacity=0.5&ponder-
ation=DEF&predefined=false&projection=absolute&scenario=optimistic&scope=baseline&threshold&ti-
meScale=annual&year=baseline&zoom=3

Best practices on flood and drought risk management 17

 Open-source disaster loss data platforms
Disaster loss databases compile an historic overview of damage and losses. Particularly,
insurance companies have developed substantial loss databases: for example, the
NATCAT8 service is operated by Munich-Re, while Swiss Re holds the Sigma explorer9.
Their data, however, is only partly publicly available and typically cover only large disasters
for which insurers pay-out are limited to insured assets, underestimating overall losses.
DesInventar10 offers an open-source alternative. Data gathering is typically driven by
public institutions and also covers the otherwise neglected small and medium disasters.
For many developing countries, the DesInventar disaster information management
system triggered the systematic development of national disaster inventories, with
spatially disaggregated data. Even though the original DesInventar pilot that developed
disaster loss databases in the 90’s was limited to nine countries in Latin America, its
widespread use is recent and triggered by its adoption by UNDRR to track progress
on the Sendai indicators and targets. In 2021, about 90 countries were systematically
recording disaster losses using DesInventar.

Multi-hazard mapping
Mapping the combined hazard and risk of various natural hazards for a particular region is
particularly relevant in view of the need for integrated climate risk management. A multi-
hazard map typically overlays the hazard maps of specific hazards, such as floods and
droughts, resulting in an aggregated multi-hazard value. The methodological weakness
in assessing the socio-economic risk from single hazards also extrapolates to multi-
hazard risk assessment. Therefore, a need exists for a systematic and comprehensive
risk assessment, while capturing multiple climate hazards at a scale that is relevant for
sub-national multi-hazard risk planning. For the whole of South Asia, multi-hazard risk
maps have been developed (Amarnath, et al., 2017), and are currently in use by the Asian
Development Bank to assess future projects.

Understanding impacts
Impact assessments of floods and droughts on socio-economic vulnerability are typically
less covered. For instance, an online tool that analyses risk reduction at river basin scale
is WaterLOUPE11. Here, the risk for water scarcity (thus not droughts) under different
scenarios is assessed for each actor-group separately, instead of providing one generic
(average) risk assessment per basin (for example, it distinguishes between the impacts
of water scarcity for self-subsistence farmers versus large farms). The BitaGreen12 tools
are designed for cities and help to design nature-based solutions to control drought,
floods and water quality problems in urbanized areas, by linking the hydrological rainfall-
runoff processes and the hydrodynamic processes representing flows in urban drainage
systems. Monetary benefits of specific projects are also calculated. Presently, BitaGreen
is applied only to the Brussels region.

8 https://www.munichre.com/en/solutions/reinsurance-property-casualty/natcatservice.html
9 https://www.swissre.com/institute/research/sigma-research/data-explorer.html
10 https://www.desinventar.net/
11 https://waterloupe.deltares.nl/en/
12 https://bitagreen.io/nl/

18 Best practices on flood and drought risk management

4.2. Early warning systems and real-time monitors
An end-to-end early warning system is an integrated system that connects hazard
data to effective emergency response and communication (APFM, 2021). Such an EWS
requires that alerts be received, understood and trigger an emergency response from
both authorities and the people and communities at risk. A broader concept has been
developed in response to the Sendai target to make multi-hazard early warning systems
more available and accessible. The International Network for Multi-Hazard Early Warning
Systems (IN-MHEWS)13 has been set up and developed to provide guidance on how to
bring end-to-end, people-centred, multi-hazard EWS systems into practice (WMO,
2018). Box 4 summarizes relevant Early Warning Systems.

Box 4 Early Warning Systems

EFAS – European Flood Alert System

EFAS14 has been operational since 2012, being developed and operated by the Joint
Research Centre (JRC), the European Union’s science hub. EFAS connects a weather
forecasting model to a hydrological model to predict not only extreme rainfall but also
the likelihood, magnitude and spatial extent of flooding (riverine and flash floods) across
Europe. These are analysed by trained hydrologists and, based on standardised criteria,
‘EFAS flood notifications’ are issued to pre-defined national authorities, who then
decide whether and which action is to be taken. These EFAS notifications are typically
complementary to their own early warning systems.

GLOFAS – Global Flood Alert Model

The EFAS team also developed the global flood alert model (GLOFAS)15, following a similar
concept. GLOFAS produces daily flood forecasts and monthly seasonal streamflow
simulations. GLOFAS is considered particularly relevant for major (often transboundary)
river basins. The most recent version of GLOFAS (version 3.1, released in May of 2021)
is calibrated over 1226 river catchments covering a total drainage area of 51 million
km² worldwide. GLOFAS provides some examples where authorities and communities
responded based on its forecast, including the Bangladesh 2020 monsoon floods. GLOFAS
is also used by the Red Cross to trigger pre-disaster humanitarian action in Uganda and
is currently being upscaled to be used in all Red Cross countries. In addition to initiating
emergency response earlier, its advantages include a system of forecast-based financing.

Drought observatories at global, continental and national scale

The European Drought Observatory (EDO)16 and its global variant, the Global Drought
Observatory (GDO)17, operate as an overarching data portal that bundles the available
information from precipitation measurements, satellite measurements and modelled
soil moisture content. Based on systematically monitored indicators, and associated

13 https://mhews.wmo.int/en/
14 https://www.efas.eu/en
15 https://www.globalfloods.eu/
16 https://edo.jrc.ec.europa.eu/edov2/php/index.php?id=1000
17 https://edo.jrc.ec.europa.eu/gdo/php/index.php?id=2001

Best practices on flood and drought risk management 19

 thresholds, the drought condition across Europe (for EDO) and globally (for GDO) is
published online in real-time, with a focus on agricultural drought. In view of the need for
more region-specific drought observatories, following a similar approach, the African
Drought Observatory (ADO)18 and the Desertification, Land Degradation and Drought
Observatory for Latin America (DLDD)19 became operational. Their approach is technical
and data-oriented and these portals do not seem to have practical applications in actual
drought risk management.
Princeton University and, later, the Princeton Climate Institute developed a range of
web-based flood and drought risk monitors at global, continental and country scale,
including the African Flood and Drought Monitor (AFDM)20 and the Latin American Flood
and Drought Monitor (LAFDM). The newest set of monitors developed at Princeton
University were at the national scale, in Africa, in collaboration with the University of
Southampton, supported by UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Hydrology Programme (IHP)
(Princeton Climate Institute, 2021). Currently available at the same platform are the flood
and drought monitors for South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Namibia.
These national flood and drought monitors are based on a set of ground, satellite and
modelled datasets, which are combined to provide a consistent picture of hydrological
conditions close to real-time, as well as forecasts up to 7-days for floods and up to 6
months for drought. These national systems are running with a spatial resolution of 5km.

Interoperable open-source flood and drought monitoring and forecasting

The requirements of pro-active flood and drought risk management for the integration
of various policy domains include integrated, compatible and (re-)useable data. Existing
data portals connect meteorological, hydrological, climatological, social and structural
databases, hydrological modelling and early warnings. The idea is to share information,
tailor it to specific needs, and enable different beneficiaries to use appropriate tools
without limited access to information.
Examples of interoperable data portals for flood and drought risk monitoring and
early warning include the myDEWETRA.world21 and the Data Integration and Analysis
System (DIAS)22 system. myDEWETRA is an open-source fully integrated system for the
analysis and projection of hazard-related events at a global, regional and local scale. It
is an organizer of information and data from several sources and can work at several
scales, allowing for real-time risk assessment, and providing calculated impact-oriented
scenarios. In the Volta River basin (West Africa), the first large scale and transboundary
Integrated Flood and Drought Management approach using the myDEWETRA.world
platform was implemented. Under the acronym VOLTALARM23, a complete end-to-
end EWS will be developed for both floods and droughts, which will be operated by
the National Meteorological and Hydrological Services (NMHSs) together with civil
protection services and other private and public stakeholders (myDEWETRA, 2021).
DIAS collects and stores data from satellites, ground observation stations and numerical
weather prediction models. It integrates these data with geographical and socio-economic
information to generate results for crisis management of global environmental issues.

18 https://edo.jrc.ec.europa.eu/ado/php/index.php?id=4500
19 http://scado.ciifen.org/scado/php/index.php?id=3000
20 http://hydrology.soton.ac.uk/apps/
21 https://www.mydewetra.world/
22 https://diasjp.net/en/
23 https://volta.mydewetra.world/

20 Best practices on flood and drought risk management

DIAS provides a model for sharing transdisciplinary research data that is essential for
achieving multiple societal goals like sustainable development, disaster risk reduction
and climate change adaptation. In developing countries where support is needed for data
archiving, DIAS provides an integrated support portal for metadata creation, quality
management, and data input. An overview of the applications of DIAS in climate change
analysis and disaster risk reduction is given by Kawasaki et al. (2017) and is accessible
online (DIAS, 2021; Kawasaki, et al., 2017). The impact of climate change on future
flood risk in the Vietnamese cities Hue, Ha Giang and Vinh Yen has been characterised
by ICHARM using DIAS, in cooperation with the University of Tokyo. A flood early
warning system has also been developed on DIAS for the Volta and Niger basin (West
Africa) under the WADiRE-Africa24 project (Water Disaster Platform to enhance climate
resilience in Africa). The application is described in the 2021 global report of the High-
level Experts and Leaders Panel (HELP) on Water and Disasters (Mishra, et al., 2021). The
WADiRE-Africa Project has established a solid technological and educational foundation
of EWS and flood risk management information to enhance the West Africa population’s
resilience and to pave the way for follow-up activities in the future.

4.3. Payment schemes for disaster recovery

A pro-active approach to flood and drought risk management, besides improved
preparedness and contingency planning, also requires a better organised emergency
response and relief. Pre-arranged, thus pro-active, risk financing and insurance solutions
allow for faster, more cost-effective recovery. While allowing the system to bounce back
more effectively, they contribute also to greater disaster preparedness and resilience. The
most vulnerable people in developing countries, often farmers, typically do not benefit
from disaster relief pay-outs. Losses are often uninsured as disaster insurance is either
unavailable or too expensive. When insured, insurance companies typically require a
damage assessment report, often accompanied with an on-site visit, resulting in delays
in payment and high transaction costs. Non-transparent decision processes on what is
reimbursed may also lead to the loss of trust in the added value of insurance.
Weather index insurance is a relatively new tool that farmers can use to help manage risk,
particularly in terms of crop losses. It pays out based on an index, such as rainfall, measured
at a local weather station, by satellite or an early warning system, rather than based on
the actual damages. If the index crosses a pre-defined threshold (e.g., too little or too
much rainfall), the farmers get paid. Because index insurance does not necessarily require
the traditional services of insurance claims assessors, it allows for claiming processes to
be quicker and more objective.

To enable more timely and reliable disaster risk finance and insurance, especially for
small-scale farmers in developing countries, several initiatives have been launched. The
InsuResilience Global Partnerships25, launched at the 2017 UN Climate Conference in Bonn,
functions as a political advocate, a knowledge platform, and a convener of stakeholders
operating on the climate and disaster risk financing and insurance agenda. The Global
Index Insurance Facility (GIIF)26, hosted by the World Bank, focuses specifically on index
insurance for small-scale farmers, micro-entrepreneurs and micro-finance institutions.
Examples of index insurance are being developed worldwide, for example, in South Asia

24 https://en.unesco.org/news/water-disaster-platform-enhance-climate-resilience-africa
25 https://www.insuresilience.org/
26 https://www.indexinsuranceforum.org/

Best practices on flood and drought risk management 21

 and the Caribbean (Box 5). In both regions, insurance is recommended, together with other
preparedness-oriented measures. A similar concept to index insurance, though focused on
humanitarian aid, is forecast-based financing (FBF)27. Likewise, finance is provided based
on pre-agreed arrangements when a weather-related threshold is exceeded.

Box 5 Rapid pay-out on flood and drought disasters

Caribbean and Central America: rapid pay-out to governments and vulnerable

individuals
The Caribbean Catastrophic Risk Insurance Facility (CCRIF)28 is one of the oldest operational
index insurance systems, operating since 2007, and the first multi-country system. It
provides rapid and transparent payouts, within 14 days, when pre-defined thresholds
are exceeded for tropical cyclones, earthquakes and excess rainfall. For excess rainfall, a
tailor-made model calculates losses by connecting near-real-time weather forecasts and
soil saturation to a 20-year database on rainfall events, economic losses and associated
damage functions. Thresholds are country specific. Similar models for drought are being
developed. Payouts are delivered to national governments (so far 14 governments) in the
Caribbean and Central America, which then decide how to allocate the funds.
The Livelihood Protection Policy (LPP)29, developed under the Climate Risk Adaptation
and Insurance in the Caribbean (CRAIC)30 project, is complementary to CCRIF and
provides micro-insurance to low-income individuals (including farmers, tourism and
construction workers and market vendors) for heavy winds and extreme rainfall.

South Asia: Bundling and upscaling index insurance for farmers

Pilots in South Asia, led by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI), have
demonstrated the relevance of index insurance to enhance the resilience of small-scale
farmers. Under the Index Based Flood Insurance (IBFI)31 project, between 2017 and
2020, 7,000 farmers in India and Bangladesh received rapid pay-outs via their mobile
phones. To build up the flood index, an open-source hydrological model, based on 35
years of observed rainfall and discharge data, has been developed. When populated with
contemporary rainfall data, the model successfully indicated the location, depth and
duration of flooding in farmers’ fields, demonstrating that it could be used as the ‘trigger’
for payments to insured farmers. To facilitate the reaching of disadvantaged groups
by insurers, a framework for social inclusion in flood risk insurance was incorporated
(Aheeyar, et al., 2019).
Despite the clear benefits to farmers of receiving insurance, however, penetration
rates for agricultural cover remain low. The IBFI team hence developed guidance and
recommendations on how to enhance uptake and scale of flood index insurance (Amarnath,
et al., 2021). Four actions can help to overcome this challenge: developing an effective
communication strategy and disseminating information about insurance schemes and
their benefits in accessible ways; ensuring transparency in insurance contracts, and

27 https://www.forecast-based-financing.org/
28 https://www.ccrif.org/
29 https://www.ccrif.org/projects/crai/livelihood-protection-policy-lpp?language_content_entity=en
30 https://www.ccrif.org/projects/crai/climate-risk-adaptation-insurance
31 https://ibfi.iwmi.org/

22 Best practices on flood and drought risk management

improving procedures for estimating losses, calculating fair compensation, and making
timely payouts; strengthening grievance redressal mechanisms; and providing greater
financial support at government level, including subsidies to cover insurance premiums.
A more holistic approach to manage climate risks was demonstrated by the BICSA project
(Bundled Solutions of Index Insurance with Climate Information and Seed Systems to
manage Agricultural Risks)32, also managed by IWMI. Using satellite-based weather
forecasting, the BICSA project provides index insurance for both floods and droughts to
more than 25,000 households in India. A novelty is that index insurance is provided as
a bundle, together with seeds resistant to floods and drought. Farmers that buy flood-
and drought-tolerant seeds will also receive climate information services, agronomic
advisories and weather index insurance. Farmers are naturally reluctant to invest in, for
example, drought-tolerant seeds if they risk losing everything to a weather disaster.
With the insurance, however, farmers protect themselves from financial losses, while
also being able to take better decisions based on the regular weather updates received
through short mobile text messages. The BICSA approach is being upscaled in Senegal
and Mozambique under the World Bank-supported ‘Next Generation Drought Index’
project (World Bank, 2020).

Forecast-based financing & impact-based forecasting

Following a similar concept to index insurance, forecast-based financing (FBF)33 aims to
release funds automatically for pre-agreed activities, once a pre-defined threshold is
exceeded. FBF, however, focuses on early action for humanitarian aid. The first FBF became
operational for flood control in Uganda and is currently being rolled out worldwide for
other natural hazards as well, including droughts, heatwaves, cold waves, volcanic ash and
tropical storms. To set up and monitor the threshold, weather forecasts and risk analyses
are used. An Anticipation Hub34 has been setup by the German Red Cross and its partners
as an online platform for the so-called anticipatory (or pro-active) action. Forecast-
based financing is, therefore, connected to the concept of impact-based forecasting. By
combining early warning systems and risk analyses, early action can be better targeted
to areas and communities where impacts are strongly observed. Using impact-based
forecasting, the decisions of when, where, which and for whom early action is to be taken
can be facilitated. Guidance on how to implement forecast-based financing35 is provided
by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC, 2021).

4.4. Bottom-up and participatory approaches

Planning for flood and drought risk management is typically done top-down. Strategies
and priorities are defined at the national scale, by the authority with competence on
flood or drought risk management, often in response to national or international policy
requirements. Other actors may be consulted but generally are not actively engaged,
including other government departments (e.g. land use planning, water management,
sustainable development), citizens, businesses, academia, civil society and the scientific
community. Flood and drought risk management, however, is a shared responsibility
and requires a collaborative effort. Datasets on flood and drought hazards and risks are

32 https://wle.cgiar.org/bundled-solutions-index-insurance-climate-information-and-seed-systems-man-
age-agricultural-risks
33 https://www.forecast-based-financing.org/
34 https://www.anticipation-hub.org/
35 https://manual.forecast-based-financing.org/en/

Best practices on flood and drought risk management 23

 likewise typically top-down, such as global early warning systems. Typical barriers for
more evidence-based decision-making, in particular at the local level, include the limited
access to data, limited fit-for purpose (e.g. spatial resolution too coarse for local decision-
making), missing legal and institutional frameworks and limited buy-in and/or capacity of
managers to use available data. The ‘whole-of-society’ approach, in which actors in varying
capacities and degrees of responsibility are engaged in reducing disaster risks and building
disaster resilience in their local area typically requires a bottom-up participatory approach.

There is also a need to link Disaster Risk Management approaches to projected climate
change impacts, as projections clearly indicate an increase in extreme weather events,
particularly floods and drought (IPCC, 2022). Therefore, UNESCO launched the Climate
Risk Informed Decision Analyis (CRIDA)36, to support flood and drought risk managament
under the uncertainty of climate change. Through a 5-step process, stakeholders are
engaged to identify water resources challenges. Stress test are then perfomed to
identify the performance of water systems and to understand when conditions become
challenging for local communities. This drives then the definition of a set of adaptation
actions, which are screened for efficiency and cost-effectiveness, while assessed for
ecological co-benefits.

Bottom-up approaches are diverse, ranging from engaging citizens in flood and drought
mapping and monitoring to the development of a shared vision and/or robust and socially
acceptable solutions and the streamlining of various policies and plans, including land use
planning (WMO and GWP, 2017). Box 6 describes best practices on bottom-up flood and
drought risk management.

Box 6 Bottom-up approaches on flood and drought risk

management

Building climate resilience in water management systems: the CRIDA approach

The handling of uncertainty in flood and drought risk planning, especially under climate
change, is a challenge in many regions. The Climate Risk Informed Decision Analysis
(CRIDA)37 approach offers guidelines for developing climate resilient drought and flood
risk management plans that are compatible with many IWRM based guidelines, but are
targeted to handle uncertainty (UNESCO, 2018). It starts from:
i. collaboratively defining key objectives and vulnerabilities (including acceptability
thresholds);
ii. identifying the climate conditions (using the decision scaling method) that cause
these vulnerabilities and their plausibility under future climate projections;
iii. identifying robust and flexible adaptation actions that can reduce these vulnerabilities
over time;
iv. evaluating and prioritizing alternative pathways for adaptation and
v. institutionalizing the forthcoming decisions.

CRIDA can be used both on a planning (defining a portfolio of measures) and project
(i.e. feasibility of investment) scale, designed as a process to maximize buy in. CRIDA

36 https://en.unesco.org/crida
37 https://en.unesco.org/crida

24 Best practices on flood and drought risk management

has been applied in multiple locations; examples of a large-scale CRIDA application
are the Límari basin in Chile (drought-focused) and the State of California (climate
resilient water management). More specific, urban applications are the climate resilient
investment plan on drinking water supply in the city of Lusaka (Zambia) and the urban
green infrastructure plan for the city of Udon Thani (Thailand). In Zimbabwe, the CRIDA
approach was used to assess projections of floods and droughts, and to define and
implement adaptation actions through an active stakeholder engagement process.

Collaborative flood risk mapping for smarter city planning

Dar es Salaam, the capital of Tanzania, is expected to become a megacity by 2030. Every
year during the rainy season, it suffers from devastating floods that wipe out roads
and houses, and result in many deaths. It is well acknowledged that with adequate city
planning, flood damage could be partially prevented. Yet, much of the city is made up
of unplanned and informal settlements. In response to this rising set of challenges, the
community risk mapping project Ramani Huria38 (Swahili for ‘Open Map’) was launched in
2015. Ramani Huria creates accurate maps of flood-prone zones through a collaborative
process that engages both students and community members. By helping communities
to map residential areas, roads, streams, floodplains, and other relevant features,
the project brings disaster prevention and response to areas that were previously off
the map. The project also brings awareness on the need for flood prevention and risk
reduction to the local level, while teaching participants valuable computer and mapping
skills that they can put to use elsewhere. Since 2019, Ramani Huria is part of the Tanzania
Resilience Academy39 (The Resilience Academy, 2021).

Early warning service for urban pluvial floods, for and by citizens
In the FloodCitiSense40 project, citizens are actively involved in the monitoring of rainfall
and flooding, making use of low-cost sensors and web-based technologies. The project
launched a mobile application for citizens to report pluvial floods: citizens in any city can
take a picture or a video and upload it through the app. Flood reports can then be viewed
online, along with rainfall from official rain gauges and FloodCitiSense rainfall sensors.
The low-cost pluviometers are currently only operational in the three pilot cities of
the project: Brussels (Belgium), Rotterdam (the Netherlands) and Birmingham (UK).
While the concept of FloodCitiSense is promising, its outcomes also revealed that the
technology for a citizen-science based flood early warning systems is still insufficiently
mature. Reported challenges include battery problems (especially in winter), loss of
connectivity and obstruction by neighbouring objects. An important user challenge is
the building, and in particular retaining, of a large user database (FloodCitiSense, 2021).

Policy coherence and holistic multi-actor resilience building

In Mozambique, the Disaster Risk Reduction Master Plan (2017–2030) is aligned with the
climate change adaptation (CCA) strategy and with the Sustainable Development Goals
(UNDRR, 2019). As a result, DRR and CCA have been mainstreamed into district planning
and budgeting systems in the eight key sectors of agriculture, health, water, social
protection, roads, the environment, meteorology and energy. In addition, a gender unit
has been setup which aims to empower women and strengthen capacities of gender-

38 https://ramanihuria.org/en/
39 https://resilienceacademy.ac.tz/
40 http://www.floodcitisense.eu/

Best practices on flood and drought risk management 25

 based disaster prevention and response. The approach is complemented by local level
resilience-based sustainable urban development. The capital Maputo was a pilot city of
the UN-Habitat “Making Cities Sustainable and Resilient” programme. Therein, the City
Resilience Profiling Tool (CRPT)41 is being used to create a comprehensive participatory
profile of the city and recommend actions to improve its resilience. This process will allow
integration with the Ecosystem Based Adaptation Plan and the Metropolitan Transport
Project, as well as relevant new policies, plans and agreements that are currently being
developed at the municipal level.

#WeResilient: Multi-scale risk-informed sustainable development

The Province of Potenza, Italy, launched the “#weResilient strategy42” (Attolico &
Smaldone, 2019), a strategy for territorial development that integrates environmental
sustainability, territorial safety and climate change at provincial and local levels. The
#WeResilient strategy aims to support and coordinate 100 municipalities located in
the Province in outlining and implementing local resilience and sustainable development
strategies and actions. The strategy is composed of a long-term vision, an effective
plan and subsequent concrete actions and strong multi-stakeholder and community
engagement. The Province supported the creation of local conditions to manage hazards,
mitigate risks and improve local sustainable development with a multiscale and multilevel
holistic approach. The #WeResilient strategy accounted for the interdisciplinary nature
of risk, as DRR is considered in all decisions at all scales and in all dimensions. The
enhancement of local resilience is seen as an essential pre-condition for achieving any
sustainable social and economic development. The Province is recognised by UNDRR
as a role model for inclusive resilience, in recognition of the significant community
involvement it entails.

Disaster-smart land-use using nature-based solutions and building permits

The Sigmaplan43 provides protection of the region of Flanders, Belgium against the
flooding of the Scheldt river (Sigmaplan, 2017). At its inception, Sigmaplan aimed at
providing a similar protection to the famous Dutch Delta plan. However, the strategy
taken under the Sigmaplan differed fundamentally: in addition to dike strengthening
and heightening and a storm surge barrier near Antwerp, the Sigmaplan has established
natural flood control areas upstream of the city of Antwerp. Flood control areas are low
laying polders, connected to the river, that can absorb excess water. At the same time,
Sigmaplan aims to create a multi-functional landscape that will be beneficial for nature,
tourism, shipping and agriculture. Farmers that are negatively affected by the creation
of the flood control areas are financially compensated.
In addition to the large-scale developments under the Sigmaplan, instruments are
availabletoregulatethedevelopmentofrealestateinflood-proneareas.The‘watertest’44
is an obligatory step in the issuing of building permits in the region of Flanders, Belgium.
The water authority assesses the future flood risk of new constructions based on online
flood hazard and risk maps (Geoloket, 2021). The maps delineate historically flooded
areas (high flood risk), areas that could potentially flood under extreme conditions, and

41 https://reliefweb.int/report/mozambique/recommendations-actions-resilience-and-sustainability-mapu-
to-executive-summary
42 https://www.undrr.org/publication/province-potenzas-weresilient-multiscale-and-multilevel-holistic-ap-
proach-downscaling
43 https://sigmaplan.be/en/
44 https://www.waterinfo.be/Watertoets

26 Best practices on flood and drought risk management

the zones where new developments are prohibited. Under specific conditions, building
permits could be issued—for example, if the future building is flood-proof and a water
buffering capacity is maintained or enhanced by constructing a floodable cellar or an
infiltration pond in the garden.

© UNESCO BE-RESILIENT Program, 2021

Figure 5: The newly established Community Radio in Chimanimani, Zimbabwe, to
support early warning. early action and disaster risk communication through
community engagement

Be-Resilient: multi-hazard risk management in Southern African Biosphere

Reserves
Under the umbrella of ‘Be-Resilient’45, UNESCO launched a series of projects in Southern
Africa to make Biosphere Reserves ‘Observatories for Climate Change Adaptation’. The
approach combined multi-hazard risk assessments for droughts, floods and landslides,
and combines this with the establishement of locally-relevant Early Warning systems and
a Climate Risk Informed Decision Analysis (CRIDA) to assess climate change uncertainty
on water resources planning and adaptation. The Biosphere Reserve provides a model
for long-term stakeholder engagement and buy-in to proactively manage their natural
resources in line with current and future climate. A key innovation of this project has
also been the establishment of several Community Radios (Figure 5), that provide a
pathway for community engagement in early warning, early action and disaster risk
communication.

45 http://en.unesco.org/be-resilient, https://en.unesco.org/be-resilient_zim, https://en.unesco.org/be-resil-

ient_sa

Best practices on flood and drought risk management 27

 Using CRIDA to move from recovery to resilience building in Zimbabwe
The Zimbabwean highlands suffered from extensive drought in 2018 and 2019 that
ended abruptly when cyclone Idai flooded the region. This compound crisis highlighted
the need to move from disaster recovery towards more long-term planning and proactive
climate risk management. UNESCO developed a risk analysis approach involving
multi-hazard risk mapping for floods, droughts and landslides, coupled with increased
monitoring and early warning capacity. This was then combined with a bottom-up
Climate Risk Informed Decision Analysis (CRIDA), as a large set of climate change
projections indicated precipitation could decrease up to 30% in the next decades. By
engaging all stakeholders and community-based organizations, the current drought
and flood impacts were identified, and used to jointly identify locally-driven adaptation
options. These options were then evaluated using a Climate Stress Test and resulted in
the prioritization of Check Dams as a first adaptation action. Sixty of those dams were
eventually constructed as a pilot in combination with agro-ecological practices that were
locally developed (Figure 6), and these actions are being monitored for their efficiency
to define further upscaling in the near future.

© UNESCO BE-RESILIENT Program, 2021

Figure 6: Agro-ecology being practiced in Chimanimani Biosphere Reserve

28 Best practices on flood and drought risk management

6. Recommendations
The 2021 summer floods in Europe showed that a portfolio of instruments, like flood
risk management maps, contingency plans, retention basins, real-time monitoring and
early warning systems on its own do not prevent disasters from happening. A failure in
the communication chain, from flood forecasters to citizens in danger, in combination
with inefficient coordination between actors, lack of trust in issued alerts and limited
knowledge on how to respond to an alert, are amongst possible reasons. The European
case illustrates the importance of bringing an end-to-end people-centred early warning
system in into practice, as prioritised under the Sendai Framework, and elaborated by the
Associated Programme on Flood Management (APFM) and the International Network
for Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems (IN-MHEWS). An end-to-end, people-centred
early warning system requires that alerts be received and understood, and that they
trigger an emergency response from authorities but also from people and communities
at risk. The challenge to bring an end-to-end EWS into practice relates to the broader
challenge of pro-active flood and drought risk management and includes the need for
inclusive and evidence-based decision-making under uncertainty, while aiming to engage
local communities, to create ownership, buy-in and trust and to coordinate with agencies
responsible for land and water management, climate change adaptation and sustainable
development. In response to the described challenges and highlighted best practices,
recommendations are provided to improve the mapping of hazard and risk maps on the
one hand and to facilitate a better buy-in of end-users on the other hand. Overall, there
seems to be a greater focus on the technical aspects of data and models, instead of on
convincing and informing people on the field.

Improve mapping of hazard and risk maps: In response to the main weaknesses of hazard
and risk maps, recommendations outlined in the following paragraphs are related to 1)
more context-specific socio-economic vulnerability assessments; 2) more systematic
and comprehensive multi-hazard risk assessment; and 3) more spatially and sectorally
disaggregated impact assessment.

Context-specific socio-economic vulnerability assessments are one step further than the
commonly used vulnerability maps, where vulnerability is typically mapped as a static map
of populated areas and critical infrastructures. In combination with flood hazard maps,
for example, it can be concluded which streets, schools, hospitals, elderly houses amongst
others are located in flood prone areas and what is their probability of flooding. To progress
from categorical risk maps to monetary risk maps, damage functions and loss databases
are often used. These damage functions are often not locally-calibrated, especially for
rural communities in the Global South, making their applicability and relevance at the
local level challenging. Social vulnerability, especially in view of the ‘leaving no one behind
principle’ is typically more difficult to capture, and requires in-depth local knowledge and,
thus, a collaborative bottom-up approach. Thus, a strengthened socio-economic risk
analysis is needed to better prioritise risk mitigation actions.

More systematic and comprehensive multi-hazard risk assessment: Considering that a

specific area is often exposed to more than one hazard, comprehensive multi-hazard risk
mapping is needed for sub-national planning (for example, at the municipal or city level).
Efforts are needed to harmonize and aggregate single hazard and risk maps in a composite
index that is relevant for decision-making and useable in risk communication. Understanding

Best practices on flood and drought risk management 29

 the overall risk to multiple hazards is particularly challenging and it adds up to the difficulty
in characterising the socio-economic risk for single hazards mentioned above.

More spatially and sectorally disaggregated impact assessment: In order to better

understand how risk can be reduced effectively, methods and tools for impact assessment
that provide spatial and sectoral disaggregation should be developed. To prioritise efforts,
local understanding is needed on the impact of measures on local resilience, and how it
would be affected under climate change.

Improve the buy-in of end-users: In order to facilitate a better use of data, models and early
warning systems in pro-active flood and drought risk management decisions, the buy-in
of end-users is to be ensured. Key elements for enabling buy-in are trust in data quality,
the handling of uncertainty and collaborative decisions and actions. Recommendations to
improve the buy-in of end-users are:
1. bottom-up approaches for collaborative management;
2. building trust and transparency in data quality and communications;
3. realising direct benefits like the rapid release of emergency and recovery financial
support;
4. ensure community involvement in every step of the monitoring, early warning,
early action and communication process.

Bottom-up approaches can facilitate collaborative agreement on how to prepare for and
respond to alerts. The impact of disasters is too large to be handled by one organization
only. Therefore, collaborative government effort and public engagement are critical.
Bottom-up approaches like CRIDA should be seen by decision-makers as a guiding
framework to enhance buy-in of multiple actors, which is further specified into a set of
robust and socially acceptable measures and pathways. A collaborative flood and drought
risk planning process can be used together with the available global data and alerts, local
field knowledge and even citizen science data. Iteratively, when the potential pathways to
resilience materialise and the data availability and gaps become more clear, more advanced
and tailored data and knowledge can be collected. The development of adaptive measures
and pathways, such as the ones in CRIDA, is more difficult when plans already exist, and
thus a political/formal mandate is needed to revise and streamline multiple existing (and
often mono-disciplinary) plans.

Building trust and transparency in data quality and communications is essential for effective
communication chains and corresponding emergency action. Firstly, trust is to be created
in the forecasting system. That can be through developing and operating a locally-
owned EWS. Rather than starting from scratch, it is more practical to use ready-made
open-source early warning system platforms like the my.dewetra and DIAS system.
Alternatively, existing EWS can be used or forecasts can be outsourced. Capacity building,
anyhow, is essential, and should cover all aspects of the communication chain including
the technical aspects of forecasting, the organisational and communication requirements
of an operational EWS and clarity on roles and responsibilities before, during and after
an emergency. Reaching the most vulnerable populations can save more lives but is
difficult to put into practice; the fact that the most vulnerable are at the end of the EWS
communication and decision chain, means that failures anywhere in the chain can result
in not reaching them in time (or at all). Using a bottom-up approach to risk management,
these vulnerable groups can be engaged in the responsive process from the begining, to
enhance preparedness but also for back-up plans to be designed, in case of failure along
the communication and decision chain.

30 Best practices on flood and drought risk management

Weather insurance and forecast-based financing systems can demonstrate the direct
benefits of EWS alerts for citizens through the rapid release of emergency and recovery
financial support. For these systems to work, the above recommendations need to be
realised. These systems require advanced planning, a good understanding of data, and
an agreement and trust in data, and effective risk communication system. To convince
citizens to take part, it is essential to operate simple systems with limited administrative
load for both insurers and the insured. The latter requires transparency, rapid payouts
and user-friendly redress procedures. Protocols are to be established to pro-actively
delineate roles, responsibilities and destinations for quick action when a trigger is
reached, The collaborative coordination among governments, NGOs and humanitarian
aid organisations is hereby essential.

5. Conclusions
A global expert webinar, hosted by UNESCO in June 2021 with 21 stakeholders (of which 5
women) from 11 countries, having various backgrounds (private, academic, governmental
etc), focused on the challenges and best practices to achieve the buy-in of end-users and
a sustainable uptake of the tools and data for decision-making in flood and drought risk
management. One important outcome of this webinar was the fact that technical aspects
of data and models seem to receive more attention than the efforts to convince and inform
people on the field. Creating ownership, buy-in, trust and institutional coordination
are essential to enable a better use of flood and drought risk data and tools in decision-
making. A collaborative process is hence needed, not only to gather and integrate the
typically fragmented data, but also to facilitate a risk dialogue and enhance decision-
making based on that information. The challenges for flood risk management are, similar
to the challenges in drought risk management, and connected to the broader challenge of
inclusive and evidence-based decision making under uncertainty, while aiming to engage
local communities and coordinate with agencies tasked with land and water management,
climate change adaptation and sustainable development.

This publication elaborates on the challenges for flood and drought risk management, not
only in Europe, but worldwide, and highlights some best practices to better understand
flood and drought risk and improve the use of available data and tools. Best practices listed
here include flood and drought hazard and risk mapping, real-time monitoring and early
warning systems, payment schemes for a faster recovery and bottom-up approaches to
flood and drought risk management. Finally, recommendations are provided for more
evidence-based and people-centred pro-active flood and drought risk management.

Best practices on flood and drought risk management 31

 6. References
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34 Best practices on flood and drought risk management