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Flood Risk in Greater Houston. Daniel H ogendoorn. Versie 11/19/2013. Warning. No numbers No graphs Few slides Some normativity here. Greater Houston/Galveston Bay. Sources of Flooding. Pluvial: torrential rain/runoff problems Coastal: Hurricane surge.
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Flood Risk in Greater Houston Daniel Hogendoorn Versie 11/19/2013
Warning • No numbers • No graphs • Few slides • Some normativity here.
Sources of Flooding • Pluvial: torrential rain/runoff problems • Coastal: Hurricane surge.
High risk, proposals, no action • Why not? It’s not technical (“political suicide”) • Assumption: dominant political values, entrenched in institutions, regulations, policies/private organized efforts • Texas has remarkable stability of classical liberal values; difficult to change constitution; minimal legislative activity (and on all the wrong topics.) • If so, do policies of flood risk cohere with political values? • If so, how do these constraints influence framing of plans + substance of expertise + strategies for seeking political support
Existing Policies • Mapping the private and public actors of flood risk management (Pluvial and Coastal). • Big, unsystematic diversity of policies and practices, with limited geographical coverage, limited effects on flood risk reduction. • Many levels of governance, e.g. Federal (USACE; FEMA), State (GLO), Counties (HCFC), Cities (Emergency management), unincorporated regions and municipali utility districts, Ship Channel (industries, Port of Houston Coast guard); • NGO’s and private efforts: TMC; debris-removal; flood insurance; Red Cross.
Exposure + Flood Events • Sorted into five categories, constructed for different effect on risk exposure: • - information provision: self-coordination to lower exposure • - Evacuation: (steered) coordination to lower human exposure. • - Spatial Adaptation: lowering exposure through physical modification (regulation-driven) • - Flood control interventions: lowering exposure through control of flood-event • - Recovery and Repression: exposure + Flood events intact, focussed on minimizing damage/back to normal/resiliency
Partners • TU Delft • Faculty of Civil Engineering • Faculty of Architecture • Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management • STW-funding Multifunctional Flood Defences • Texas A&M Galveston • Rice University, University of Houston (SSPEED-centre) • IV Infra; RHDHV; Dannenbaum
Ongoing fieldwork • Following the parties involved, including Dutch universities and policy-makers. • The goal is to see how implementation happens or fails to happen in response to policy and regulation practices