Floods and society: a never-ending evolutional relation

摘要

Recent increase of floods all over the world seems intensifying under the climatic variation in global warming. The devastating floods can only be managed in a holistic manner with a wide spectrum of engineering, societal and institutional measures. Flood control is a part of national economy. The rich can afford more investment while the poor less. Yet, the flood control investment cannot necessarily reduce the magnitude of economic losses of floods as flood damage potential increases by flood control investment. This leads to the necessity of living with floods, adjusting human lives to floods, the local conditions of nature. For the human adjustment, more information should be provided to the public to make them enable to judge their necessary action. The role of science for providing such information and interpreting it to the public is decisively important for effective flood defence management. In information poor basins, the IAHS (International Association of Hydrological Sciences) PUB (Prediction in Ungaged Basins) initiative is a challenge to assemble the best available technology to fill the gap between science and practice.