In this course you will be provided with the practical tools and background knowledge to improve multi-stakeholder exchange, cooperation and collaboration in the specific area that you’re working in. This way, you can contribute to making flood disaster risk management more effective and create a meaningful impact on your environment.

This course is designed for professionals, practitioners and academics engaged in flood disaster risk management all around the globe.

Flooding is one of the most threatening disasters the world faces.

Over the past decade, urban flooding has become a major problem in many parts of the world due to its social, economic and environmental impact.

It has been estimated that floods caused approximately 6.8 million deaths throughout the 20th century (Doocy et al. 2013).

Moreover, flooding has led to environmental degradation, destroyed infrastructure, and huge economic losses.

Flood risk is increasing because of population increases, economic growth, and climate change throughout the world.

Developing countries are especially vulnerable to the effects caused by climate change, because their economic, social, and environmental systems directly link to climate change.

As the frequency of floods is predicted to increase, so will the associated economic losses: While in 2005, global average flood losses were estimated to be around $6 billion per year in 2005, this number is expected to rise to more than $60 billion per year in 2050 (Maio 2018).

The reasons for increased flood risk are multi-faceted and highly region and context-specific. Often, floods can be associated with climate change, but also socio-economic factors such as land use and settlement patterns play a significant role.

As such, flood disaster risk management is at the intersection of social, environmental, economic and political issues.

Building resilience to flooding and improving disaster risk management systems is essential to sustain the well-being of humans and ecosystems.

Hence, many policy-makers around the world as well as international agreements emphasized resilience and flood risk mitigation while at the same time preserving the good status of water bodies, resulting in international agreements such as:

Even though flooding is on the international agenda, some areas of the world are especially affected and prone to flood risk. Projections suggest that Southeast Asia and Africa are at particular flood risk under climate change and socio-economic development trends (Dottor et al. 2016). This situation is being exacerbated in developing regions such as Sub-Saharan Africa due to their lack of resources to deal with flood impacts.

In those cases, effective and efficient flood disaster risk management is crucial to prevent damage, minimize economic losses and save lives.

Many countries are introducing adaptive and integrated systems of risk management. 

The integrated approach involves a wide range of stakeholders of central and local governments, private sector, academia, civil society organizations, and local communities.

There are various factors that contribute to effective flood disaster risk management. 

This course puts the focus on stakeholder collaboration, cooperation, and communication.  We are looking forward to guide you through the course and provide you with the theoretical background, tools and knowledge that you need in order to involve stakeholders effectively and therefore improve the efficiency of flood disaster risk management in the environment you’re working in.

Suggested citation: Riemann L, Pareek K (2023) Introduction to Flood Disaster Risk Management [MOOC lecture]. In Kruse S, Riemann L, Pareek K, Ziga-Abortta FR, Höllermann B (Eds) Enhancing collaboration in flood disaster risk management.