Risk analysis and vulnerability assessment in flood protection and river basin management

The water-related disasters are considerably increasing worldwide in the last years. While certain trends are global (like climate change), some actions to contrast these problems have to be taken locally. In any case, the land characteristics should be known and analyzed in order to contrast the hazards and avoid their transformations into damages or disasters when exceptional events occur. This paper firstly presents preliminary definitions about the concepts of hazard, vulnerability, risk and damage/disaster, because there is a certain lack of uniformity in the use of terms, which sometime drives towards a confusion; thus definitions are offered, with a special attention paid to the flood problems. Then, risk analysis procedures are described, which consist of systematic actions in a cycle of preparedness, response and recovery, and should form part of the integrated water resources management. Moreover, the flooding problem characteristics and the policy and related measures adopted by different European countries, to protect themselves against floods, are considered and the lessons learnt from flood defence analyzed, with the aim of featuring a new integrated flood and management approach that allocates more space for rivers and keeps a balance between present and foreseeable future spatial requirements of both water and people.