The concepts of flood risk management (FRM) have been widely embraced over the past decade. In many instances this conceptual acceptance has resulted in changes to decision-making practice, highlighting risk management as potentially more complex, but more efficient and effective in delivering multiple goals, than a traditional engineering standards-based approach.
In particular, the emergence of strategic FRM is enabling a longerterm, catchment-wide perspective to emerge. The decision process is based on an explicit trade-off of the whole life-cycle risks reduced, opportunities promoted and the resources required. In doing so, the advantages of adopting a portfolio of integrated multisector responses (including structural and nonstructural measures as well as policy instruments), have moved centre stage

A brief history of flood risk management
The earliest civilizations recognized the need to live alongside floods; locating critical infrastructure on the highest land (as seen through the churches and cathedrals of England), providing flood warnings to those who were at risk of being flooded (common practice in ancient Egypt), and making flood-sensitive land use planning choices (as practised by the Romans). The requirement for protection and a belief in people’s ability to control floods started increasingly to dominate attempts to deal with flooding. During the early part of the twentieth century the concepts of modern FRM began to emerge, and in particular, those recognizing flood management not only as an engineering pursuit but also as a social endeavour. Throughout the 1960s to 1980s, the principal means of mitigating the impacts of floods remained physical flood control (via the construction of levees, dykes, diversion channels, dams and related structures). As populations grew and flood plains were developed, flood losses continued to increase, and the need to do things differently became more apparent. A new approach was needed, one that utilized the concept of risk in decision-making in practice and not just in theory.