Sustainable flood risk management – What is sustainable?

Sustainable flood risk management has to be achieved since flood protection is a fundamental societal service that we must deliver. Based on the discourse within the fields of risk management and sustainable urban water management, we discuss the necessity of assessing the sustainability of flood risk management, and propose an evaluation framework for doing so. We argue that it is necessary to include quantitative sustainability measures in flood risk management in order to exclude
unsustainable solutions. Furthermore, we use the concept of absolute sustainability to discuss the prospects of maintaining current service levels without compromising future generation’s entitlement of services. Discussions on the sustainability of different overall flood risk schemes must take place. Fundamental changes in the approaches will require fundamental changes in the mind-sets of practitioners as well as lawmakers, politicians and the general public, which inevitably will take some
time. Right now, the importance lies in setting an agenda where sustainability is important and needs to be quantified and assessed when managing flood risk