A Good Time to Influence Federal Guidance on Water Planning - National Flood Awareness Week

March 20, 2009 | Floods & Floodplains, Greening Water Infrastructure, Small Streams & Wetlands, Stormwater & Sewage

Amy Souers Kober
Senior Director of Communications

As flood awareness week nears an end, I find myself reflecting on the need for national attention to natural or “nonstructural” approaches to flood management. We actually have a unique opportunity to influence the Administration’s approach to flood management solutions. Currently, the Administration is taking comments until April 5 on the overarching guidelines for water planning that all federal agencies will have to follow: the Principles and Standards.

We know that flawed policies at all levels of government needlessly contribute to the increase flood events. Questionable land use decisions put people in the path of floods.  Living in harms way creates a perceived need for dams, levees, concrete flood control channels, and other activities that ultimately make flooding worse, disrupt natural river processes, and perpetuate an expensive flood-damage-repair cycle. 

We need to break this cycle.  The rising toll of annual floods sends a clear message: it’s time to let go of out-dated, traditional strategies and adopt 21st century solutions that have multiple benefits for communities and will help increase resilience to climate change impacts.

Sustainable flood management practices use the natural ability of healthy rivers and floodplains to reduce flooding and make communities safer and more livable.  Acknowledging that rivers and other water bodies are dynamic, and that avoiding floods provides better protection than fighting them, will help protect communities, safeguard the environment, and save tax dollars.

We’re asking the Administration to usher in a new era of water management that fully protects and restores wetlands and floodplains because these are our first line of defense to buffer the impacts of development and climate change.

Join us in urging the Administration to base the nation’s water planning on sound science, to prioritize nonstructural solutions to flood management, and to ensure a comprehensive, 21st century approach to protect and restore America’s rivers, coasts, and wetlands.

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