Sink or swim: Alternative approaches to flood disaster reconstruction and mitigation

Climate change and population growth are expected to worsen flooding globally, leading to escalating recovery costs that countries can ill-afford. Improving disaster resilience as part of post-disaster recovery is crucial to minimising these losses. The first section, Building Back Better, looks at disaster costs following recent Australian floods. It examines post-disaster reconstruction policies in three different countries and the legislative and funding provisions that support them. Relocation is identified as a significant strategy in some countries. Ecosystem Approaches to Flooding highlights an innovative resilience strategy used in many parts of the world that not only reduces flood risk but is also expected to buffer the effects of climate change. It generally involves relocation or changing land use. Discovering what makes a successful relocation scheme is thus important to implementing this approach. In contrast to some of the other countries studied in this chapter, achieving relocation in Australia is a challenge. Recent Australian examples of relocation are studied in the final section, Relocation Policies in Australia, and timing, funding, and social factors are all found to be significant for success. In the Discussion, lessons are drawn from all sections and countries on how to achieve improved flood resilience, particularly for countries such as Australia, where barriers such as cost impede the incorporation of betterment into post-disaster reconstruction.