New approaches to flood risk management - implications for capacity-building

New approaches to flood risk management will require new behaviours from a wide set of stakeholders and practitioners. Wide scale participation in planning and decision making can help achieve these new behaviours. There is a lack of practitioners with the skills to facilitate such participatory and integrated planning. An understanding of capacity building in relationship to urban flood management is developed in this chapter. Little empirical research has been conducted on the effectiveness of capacity building in the skills required to deliver the meaningful participation and integrated planning called for in recent shifts in policy, as in the European Union Water Framework Directive. This chapter develops a conceptual framework for new methods in capacity building using systems thinking principles. These were tested in action research in England. The research highlighted several key themes for effective capacity building: ??? Create an action learning approach??? Actively encourage reflective practice??? Develop peer networks and mentoring opportunities??? Create supportive conditions for learning??? Develop learning from participants??? own understandings??? Incorporate a diversity of approaches and perspectives??? Encourage a holistic view and working across scales??? Incorporate learning about systems thinking and sustainabilityThere is a clear need to develop new approaches to capacity building if integrated solutions for flood risk management are to be realised and implemented. Further challenges for capacity building are elaborated, including: developing effective mechanisms for sharing experience and pooling knowledge amongst practitioners and finding ways to encourage an open, yet critically reflective, approach to learning.