Past Events 2006
U.S. Shares Experience with Flood Risk Management
Recent severe flooding in the United States and across Europe has prompted increased efforts to establish effective knowledge bases, develop appropriate tools, and coordinate flood and risk management on broad spatial and temporal scales. For that reason the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers sponsored an international workshop in Budapest November 7-9, 2006 on research perspectives on flooding and flood risk management.
At the event 10 U.S. flood risk management experts (mainly from the Army Corps of Engineers) joined about 20 counterparts from the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, France, Italy, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Austria and Portugal to initiate a dialogue between flood risk management researchers and practitioners in the U.S. and Europe. The 3-day gathering took place at the offices of VITUKI, Hungary's preeminent water research institution, and was organized primarily by the privatized UK hydraulics firm HR Wallingford, and was funded by a grant from the Army Corps of Engineers.
The international forum addressed how to substantially improve and hasten flood and flood risk management research and development initiatives in both the United States and Europe. The workshop assessed current practices for local and regional flood defense; identified new and innovative strategies for flood management and risk reduction; and aimed to understand the role played by uncertainty in design and implementation.
The workshop offered a unique opportunity to initiate an effective and long term dialogue between flood and flood risk management researchers and practitioners in the United States and Europe to share their experiences, to inform about relevant programs and projects, to discover knowledge and technology gaps, to identify future research to address these gaps and to recommend how such research can be accomplished through parallel and complementary efforts or through collaborative efforts.