1. Flood Risk Management Pete Rabbon Association of State
and the Role of Nonstructural Measures
Association of State
Flood Plain Managers
New Orleans, LA
Pete Rabbon
Director, National Flood Risk Management Program
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
18 November 2008
Slide 1

2. Sedimentation a Bigger Issue
The World Has Changed
Droughts
Water Conflicts
Between States
Population
Migration
2001
9/11
Global
Climate Change
Aging
Infrastructure
Growing State
Water Resources
Capabilities
2004
Our Last
Civil Works
Strategic Plan
Floods
Sedimentation a Bigger Issue
Growing Backlog
CG, O&M
Declining
Discretionary
Funding
Disappearing
Wetlands
& Coasts
Rising Cost of Oil 2

3. Deliver Enduring and Essential Water Resources Solutions
USACE Campaign Plan – Goal 2
Deliver Enduring and Essential Water Resources Solutions
Focus the talents and energy of the Corps of Engineers on delivering enduring, comprehensive, sustainable and integrated solutions to the Nation’s water resources and related challenges through collaboration with stakeholders (regions, States, local entities, other Federal Entities, etc.), playing a leadership or support role as appropriate to meet today’s and future challenges.
Goal 2 focus our talents in delivering enduring, sustainable and integrated solutions to our Nation through collaboration with stakeholders and playing a leading or supportive roles to meet today’s and tomorrows challenges.
The challenges are complex and being able to face them requires a unified voice, join efforts and a talented and competent workforce.
As you know, our success depends on how we well we play different roles and our ability to create a culture of cooperation with others.
The federal role has evolve with time…

4. New Thinking Focus From To SUCCESS = CRITERIA SCOPE WORK KNOWLEDGE
STYLE
MONEY
LIFE CYCLE
Projects
NED benefits 1st
Single purpose/need
Stay in your functional lane
Knowledge is power
Follow SOPs as recipes
Save Federal $
Plan and build
Comprehensive Plans
More balanced NED, RED, EQ, OSE benefits
Sustainable systems & healthy environment
Seek horizontal & vertical integration
Share knowledge & information
Think creatively, consider risks, think systems
Leverage resources
Plan, fund, monitor for full project life cycle
What is this new thinking?
It means shifting our notion of what success from getting a project approved.to supporting statewide water resources planning.
Comprehensive planning will take attempts to balance the types of benefits possible. No longer will NED benefits be the sole decision criterion. We must emphasize regional, environmental quality, and other social effects more. We will have to work closely with OMB to make this happen, but we’re revising our 1983 Principles and Guidelines to guide a more holistic and systems-oriented planning process.
Balance will also involve integrating our functional areas. Regulatory and Planning functions should work off the same assumptions and watershed maps.
All of this will taking seeking and sharing knowledge, not hoarding it. It will also take thinking outside the box and leveraging all sorts of resources within a systems context.
It will take thinking about what is possible while considering risks, not interpreting SOPs rigidly. The federal role is to solve problems and to spend money wisely. But there is not enough federal money available. We have to think smarter and not be rigid rule makers.
A major shift is to think about what it will take to plan for the full life-cycle of a solutions or project to include planning to modernize, remove it, or recapitalize it. Funding must consider the full life cycle, and projects must be evaluated periodically to be modernized or taken out of the inventory with deliberate intent. 4

5. Flood Risk Management Program
Vision: To lead collaborative, comprehensive and sustainable national flood risk management to improve public safety and reduce flood damages to our country.
Mission: To integrate and synchronize the ongoing, diverse flood risk management projects, programs and authorities of the US Army Corps of Engineers with counterpart projects, programs and authorities of FEMA, other Federal agencies, state organizations and regional and local agencies.

6. Flood Risk = f(chance of flood, consequences)
Flood management =
Floodwater management + Floodplain management

7. 7

8. Shared Flood Risk Management8

9. Intergovernmental Flood Risk Management Committee
Core Members: USACE, FEMA, ASFPM, NAFSMA leadership
Meet quarterly to discuss integration of programs and policies
Current Focus Areas:
Interagency Cooperation/Collaboration
Risk Communication
Levee Inventory and Assessments
Mapping, Certification, and Accreditation
Legislative Impacts

10. Interagency Levee Task Force
Identification of regional partners
A facilitated comprehensive regional approach to flood risk management and recovery
Establishment of interagency partnerships (federal / state)
Explore non-structural solutions and other flood risk management opportunities

11. Silver Jackets Teaming Structure
Initiating State-level teams nationwide
Each team will be different and will evolve
Focus is on State priorities
Will not duplicate similar efforts
Establish relationships where they don’t exist
Strengthen existing relationships
Supplement successful teams
Learn about programs and how to combine them
Lead facilitators: USACE, FEMA, State NFIP, and State EMA
RESPONSE
PLANNING
MITIGATION
SILVER JACKETS - OHIO

12. Louisiana Coastal Protection & Restoration (LaCPR)
$20 million authorized and funded by Energy & Water Development Appropriations Act, 2006.
Category 5 equivalent comprehensive hurricane protection
Congressional direction: develop and present full range of flood, coastal and hurricane protection measures exclusive of normal policy considerations.
Traditional National Economic Development (NED) and National Ecosystem Restoration (NER) analyses will not be done.
Risk-based tool development
Decision framework to present risks, costs & consequences

13. Mississippi Coastal Improvements Program (Ms CIP)
$10 million authorized in Emergency Supplemental Appropriations
Over 180 problem areas identified; 15 near-term improvements
7 hurricane storm damage reduction projects
4 flood damage reduction projects
4 ecosystem restoration projects
Comprehensive Plan
Hurricane storm damage reduction involving multiple lines of protection:
Restoration barrier islands
Improving beaches and dunes
Balance of engineered and environmental measures

14. Policy Studies
Wise Use of Floodplains – Identify procedural or legislative changes that may be warranted to allow the Corps of Engineers to be more effective in working with other Federal agencies, states, local governments and stakeholders in the management of flood risk.
WRDA 2007, Section The President is to submit a report to Congress describing the vulnerability of the U.S. to damage from flooding, comparative risks faced by different regions of the country, programs in the U.S. which may be encouraging development and economic activity in flood prone areas, and recommendations for improving those programs and proposals for implementing the recommendations.

15. National Flood Risk Management Program
Templates for Change
EU’s Directive on Flood Risk Management
Executive Order 11988
Water Resources Planning Principles and Guidelines
Unified National Program for Floodplain Management
Seeking a unified national approach to flood risk management consisting of a single national vision and policy that is applied vertically and horizontally within the Federal, state and local level of government.
We are drawing from existing templates to develop this approach, including: (read from slide)

16. National Flood Risk Management Program
EU Directive
Requires inter jurisdictional coordination
Acknowledges impacts of land use and water use decisions on flood risk
Emphasizes developing and updating flood risk assessments and maps
Addresses multiple flood risk reduction objectives
Emphasizes educating and involving the public
The Directive outlines a three step approach through which Member States will conduct assessments of river basin and coastal zone flood risks by 2011, develop flood hazard and flood risk maps by 2013, and by 2015 produce flood risk management plans by T
his directive includes elements of a unified approach to flood risk management that could help inform a similar approach in the United States, including:
Requiring inter-jurisdictional coordination to prevent or mitigate adverse impacts. The Directive requires coordination between Member States to ensure that the actions of one State do not significantly increase flood risks in a neighboring State, unless those actions have been coordinated with the adversely impacted State and a solution has been agreed to.
Acknowledging impacts of land use and water use decisions on flood risks. The Directive requires that, when developing land and water use policies, Member States consider the impact of those policies on flood risks.
Developing and regularly updating documentation of flood frequency and flooding consequences. Member States are committed to documenting both flood frequency and the consequences of flooding through risk assessments and flood hazard and flood risk maps. All must account for the impacts of climate change on flood risk and all must be updated on a six year cycle.
Addressing multiple flood risk reduction objectives. Flood risk management plans are to be established at the river basin level to reduce the adverse consequences of flooding for multiple objectives, including human health, the environment, cultural heritage and economic activity.
Educating and involving the public. Member States are required to make their flood hazard and flood risk maps and their flood risk management plans available to the public and must encourage public involvement in the production, review and updating of their flood risk management plans.

17. National Flood Risk Management Program
Executive Order 11988
“...take action to reduce the risk of flood loss, to minimize the impact of floods on human safety, health and welfare, and to restore and preserve the natural and beneficial values served by the floodplain.”
Additionally, a 1977 Executive Order (EO) calls on all Federal agencies with programs or activities impacting floodplains to “....take action to reduce the risk of flood loss, to minimize the impact of floods on human safety, health and welfare, and to restore and preserve the natural and beneficial values served by floodplains”. Today, EO is being re-evaluated to identify opportunities for strengthening the wording such that it leads to a more coordinated approach to managing the role of Federal activities in floodplains. The revisions to EO provide a mechanism through which Federal agencies could cooperate to outline a unified Federal approach to flood risk management.

18. National Flood Risk Management Program
Unified National Program for
Floodplain Management
The call for a unified national approach to flood risk management, in the larger context of floodplain management, is not without precedent in the United States. The National Flood Insurance Program Act of 1968 contained a directive to the President to provide Congress with proposals for a unified national program for floodplain management. In response to this directive, a sequence of task forces have been convened and reports submitted in 1976, 1979, 1986 and most recently in 1994, each providing a conceptual framework, strategies and tools for accomplishing national floodplain management goals.
Explain that USACE has already engaged in initial coordination activities with the full range of other Federal agencies that have responsibilities in the Nation’s floodplain, to revive this Unified Program.

19. National Flood Risk Management Program
Water Resources Planning
Principles and Guidelines
National Objectives:
Public Safety
Environmental Quality
Economic Development
Also supporting improved coordination between Federal agencies are revisions currently underway to the water resource planning guidance followed by USACE, the Principles and Guidelines for Water and Related Land Resources Implementation (P&Gs).
Historically, the P&Gs have emphasized national economic development as the primary objective of Federal involvement in water resources management. Economic criteria were the basis for planning decisions.
The current revisions to the P&Gs consider other national objectives, including public safety and environmental quality, on equal standing with the traditional national economic development objective Furthermore, the revisions address the need for a comprehensive watershed approach to planning, through which all stakeholders have a role in planning and implementation and consideration is given to the watershed –wide impacts of a management measures.
These changes to the planning guidance underlying the design and formulation of all USACE projects provide a basis for future coordination and collaboration with other Federal agencies with programs or activities impacting floodplains.

20. A Picture of the Future ….?
It is ours to create. 20