International flood forum on identification of effective flood risk management from lessons learned

The 2011 flood events severely affected Thailand, especially in the Chao Phraya River Basin. With growing population and infrastructures the exposure to natural hazards is inevitably increasing. A major flood event, like that in 2011, has a tendency to cause a wide spread impact in Thailand, which in turn will negatively affect the country’s economy due to the concentration of both population and economic assets.

Under the support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Program for Reduction of Vulnerability to Floods in Thailand expects to build up and enhance the institutional and human capacity of the agencies related to flood risk management in Thailand. International flood forum is one of the activities under this program to build up the network of flood risk management and to be a platform for sharing the experiences on sound flood management from experts in and outside regions. It is necessary to make an attempt to reflect on the gaps or lessons for disaster risk management that can be drawn from the recent flood events. The lessons learned from different countries on flood risk management will prove useful, not only to Thailand, but also other countries facing similar problems since such lessons can be referenced as good practices for the region. How other countries have integrated risk reduction measures in flood recovery and preparedness plans to reduce the impacts of future floods will also be focused.

The forum is designed to encourage and facilitate knowledge transfer and experience sharing on good practices for flood risk management. It will also be useful to see how other countries have integrated risk reduction measures in recovery plans. The invited participants to the workshop will be requested to draw attention to the specific elements they have added into flood risk management strategies and recovery plans to reduce the future potential losses in terms of policy changes, improvements to institutional set up, coordination, insurance schemes, balancing between structural and non-structural flood mitigation measures and etc.

Objectives

The forum will provide a platform to officials and other stakeholders who are responsible for flood risk management to be able to exchange experiences and will try to identify practical strategies for on flood risk management and disaster risk reduction. The forum aims to:

• To bring together national and international experts who have experiences on flood risk management to discuss and identify good flood risk management
• To share the experiences and encourage knowledge exchange in the field of flood risk management and disaster risk reduction
• To strengthen knowledge and awareness on the important issues needed to be considered in the floor risk management from lesson learned and sound practices from different countries
• To provide networking opportunities in order to facilitate further collaboration