Flood risk management under uncertainty in transboundary basins: a delicate balancing act

ABSTRACT

Flooding is an inherently uncertain hydrometeorological phenomenon. When it occurs in transboundary basins, the complexity of its management is amplified by international treaties and needs for political accountability. Little has been written about FRM under the inevitable uncertainty in these transboundary contexts. This paper addresses this gap through an exploratory case study of a new FRM plan (Plan 2014) in the Great Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River system in North America. We examine the evolving nature of contemporary FRM towards more flexible approaches in the face of increasing uncertainty. When this new management plan coincided with severe transboundary flooding, this highlighted deep tensions, notably between upstream and downstream communities, expert and lay opinion, and between the planners setting rules and the operators using those rules. This story also showcases the complex balancing act faced by flood risk managers operating across national boundaries who are asked to contend with hydrological variability as well as public needs for certainty. We contend that the negotiation and agreed dispute resolution processes surrounding these tensions is a fundamental component of FRM in international basins, and one that may become ever more important as climate change further increases the uncertainty regarding these hydrometeorological hazards.

KEYWORDS:

• Flooding
• transboundary basins
• uncertainty
• strict/flexible risk management
• lay/expert opinion
• planners/operators
• upstream/downstream
• USA/Canada

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. John Boardman and Andrew Tabas for their valuable help and support throughout the course of this research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The history of this regulation in fact goes back to 1952 with the ‘1952 Order of Approval’ for the Moses-Saunders dam. In July 1958, a working committee began discussing the ‘operation details’ of rule-based regulation called Plan 1958-A (1960) (International St. Lawrence River Board of Control Working Committee, 1959, p. 1). This document was then refined in quick succession by Plan 1958-C (1962) and then by Plan 1958-D in 1963 (International Joint Commission, 2014, pp. 9–10).

2 The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.