Annotated Bibliography for Flood Control Policy, April 26

This brief article discusses an alternative approach that the small town of Luverne, MN, took to controlling their flood problems. Instead of relying on the traditional fixes of dams or improved storm sewers the town elected to terrace neighboring farmland that was the source of much of the flood water. This approach not only was successful but saved the town a considerable amount of money. I enjoyed his article as it illustrated a novel approach towards finding a solution to flooding problems.

This article focuses on the central role that levees play in the federal flood-control policy. It details the $25 billion investment the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has put into levees in the Midwest, and how the construction of levees has channelized flow and increased the height of floodwaters. It also suggest some nonstructural possibilities to flood-control, including the removal of human activities from the floodplain. Mr. Denning also discusses the differing roles of local vs. federal inputs into flood-control policy. The article concludes that a subtle shift has occurred away from the tradition of building higher and larger levees towards nonstructural solutions.

This article advocates the use of natural flood mitigation following the ineffectiveness of man-made levees during the Midwest floods of 1993. The loss of wetlands in the drainage basin since European settlement and its effect on floods is discussed. The major omission if the lack of any discussion on the political implications and feasibility of choosing to not rebuild the levees.

The title of this article is somewhat revealing of its contents, although more issues are covered besides natural ways to reduce flooding. The authors also discuss how natural ecosystems are dependent on recurring floods in order to remain healthy and discuss how the populations of endangered species have increased following the Midwest flooding during the summer of 1993. The article begins to ramble away from the title when it begins to list some of the shortcomings of the federal flood insurance program, but overall I liked it.

I found this article to be most interesting for its inclusion of businesses that aren’t directly affected by flooding but are economically harmed by flooding. One such case would be a feed store that is above the flood level but loses business from the farms that are flooded. The authors state that they are the first to take into account this ‘regional’ effects of flooding, which if the claim is true means that many of the cost-benefit analyses need to be recalculated. Unfortunately my economics background is too limited to judge the model they present.

This article was written after the extreme floods in the summer of 1993 that affected the Midwest. The author assesses the damage from the flood in some detail and reviews some of the policy work done by federal agencies since the flood. Ms. Philippi criticizes previous flood-control policy and shows how, in some cases, it has exacerbated the damage from flooding. These criticisms and others such as allowing floodplain development and the lack of natural storage areas are presented by the author but I fault her for not having enough concrete examples of potential policy changes that could be wrought to fix these problems.

This brief comment on Ms. Phillipi’s article (Plugging the Gap in Flood Control Policy) in the previous issue agrees with the majority of the issues laid out in her article but believes that she did not dispel one myth: that the goal of federal flood policy is to reduce flood damages. I don’t believe the author made a strong enough case for this bold claim (although he only had limited space) nor does the author show the inherent interconnections between things such as cost-benefit analysis and mitigating flood damages.

This article concentrates on the inherent risks involved with development occurring n the floodplain and how current flood-control policy helps to distort that risk. It focuses in particular on the town of Chesterfield, MO, which choose to encourage commercial development of a 50 year floodplain that was thought to be protected by a levee. The levee failed during the summer of 1993, damaging a major airport and the business located nearby. This is a good article that covers many of the issues involved with flood-control policy and its effects on business.

This dense article critiques Ontario’s floodplain management policies by using the town of Glen Williams as a case study. The article discusses the lack of focus of the policy and how it fails to establish clear jurisdiction over the floodplain. This is a very comprehensive article that I may have chosen to distribute to the class if it had been made more readable.

This discussion in this article focuses on the Galloway Report, which was the federal government’s attempt at reviewing and commenting on federal flood-control policy after the floods of 1993. The report acknowledges that similar flooding events will undoubtedly occur again and that fully protecting all developments within the affected zones is unfeasible if not impossible. From this concept the report then goes on to suggest alternative concepts covered in many of the other articles listed in this bibliography. This includes increase wetland area, wise use of the floodplain, the purchase of particularly susceptible properties, and the decrease of subsidies in the federal flood insurance program.

Mr. Wiener covers a variety of topics in this wide-ranging discussion on federal flood policy. He critiques previous and current flood policy and shows how the effects of these flood policies are often in opposition to their stated goals. The author also takes issue with the way that the effectiveness of these flood prevention programs have had. I enjoyed this policy paper as it presented many good points for discussion.

Mr. Williams presents the important differences between flood control and flood management, and advocates moving from the former to the latter. He includes case studies from Germany and Bangladesh which gives the article a global view that the most of the other articles lack.