Integrating flood risk management and spatial planning: legislation, policy, and development practice

Flooding is expected to become more common and more severe as climate change progresses. Past and ongoing research suggests that a better integration between spatial planning as a nonstructural measure and flood risk management is one way to deal with the problems related to flooding. In order to better understand the potential of such integration, the case of the River Dodder catchment in Ireland is used to examine the extent to which flood objectives are integrated with spatial plans and whether the actual development reflects the attempts to plan and manage potential flooding. The study reveals that recent legislation formally supports the integration of spatial planning and flood risk management. In turn, such legal requirements are reflected in spatial plans that demonstrate increasing attention to flood risk. However, the greater consideration of flooding in policy terms did not always coincide with flooding-conscious development. Initial evidence seen in this case shows that the actual development may occur against preservation policies that are prescribed in the plans and may lack a comprehensive consideration of flood risks. It is therefore concluded that the link between legislation, policy, and development is complex and indirect, and that a closer look at the factors that intervene in their relationship and determine the nature of their causality (if any), would offer further insight into the prospects of integration of spatial planning and flood risk management