LEVEE SAFETY AND TOLERABLE RISK - IMPLICATIONS FOR SHARED RISK, RESPONSIBILITY, AND ACCOUNTABILITY

摘要

The US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) established a levee safety program in November 2007 to assess and manage risks to people, property, and the environment from inundation associated with breach or overtopping of levee systems. USACE intends to use tolerability of risk concepts and tolerable risk guidelines in this program. USACE committed to develop these policies in an open and coordinated manner with its federal, state, local, and tribal stakeholders. In March 2010 USACE began this collaborative approach with stakeholders by hosting an international workshop on tolerable risk. Levee systems are one part of local, regional and national flood risk management strategies. Levees complement floodplain management activities that govern floodplain use, identify, and reduce vulnerabilities to promote resilient communities. Shared responsibilities for floodplain management at the Federal, state and local levels require collaborative and coordinated decision-making to ensure that flood risks are tolerable. Levee systems help manage flood risk to existing development and at the same time make floodplains available for more extensive uses such as residential, commercial and industrial development. These activities produce benefits, but increased development places an increased number of people and assets in the floodplain. Consequently, the levee system may lead to an increase in economic risk over time, and may transform economic risk into life-safety risk as the floodplain population increases. Development activities and other floodplain decisions may begin to undermine the risk reduction objectives of the levee system. This paper provides an overview of the USACE levee safety program, a summary of current USACE levee safety policy concepts and presents and discusses findings of the March 2010 workshop addressing tolerable risk guidelines for levees.