Critical Technical Issues on the EU Flood Directive

The EU Directive 2007/60 on the estimation and management of flood risk entered into force in 2007 with the objective to reduce flood risk in Europe. EU Member States are obliged to prepare flood hazard and flood risk maps and devise flood risk management plans for the river basins of their territory. In this paper several issues of technical nature are discussed related to difficulties in implementing the directive. It is stressed that the directive is very demanding regarding the topographic data of high accuracy and socioeconomic data which are not easily available for each river basin. Regarding international rivers, the implementation of the directive is even more difficult since this requires a comprehensive cooperative effort jointly by the riparian countries. Finally, some recommendations are made for an effective implementation of the directive mainly in the context of climatic and institutional conditions of Mediterranean countries.

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