Assessment and management of flood risks in Austria

The focus of the paper is the analysis of flood risks in Austria, and how the most recent flood experiences has led to a revised flood risk management strategy. Within quantitative risk analysis, particular attention is paid to model uncertainty, data bias and parameter estimation of unsteady environmental phenomena. The latter cover global alterations, such as climate change impacts, human interventions in the river basins as well as the accumulation of vulnerable assets in harm's way. On this basis, risk definition is discussed and approaches to expand the risk concept are proposed. The second part of the paper presents ways to cope with the risks that are part of 'Integrated Flood Risk Management'. This comprises the major elements of risk analysis, hazard control, damage control, emergency measures and public involvement. The common goal of reducing the steady increase of flood damage shall be achieved by a collaboration of all involved actors and disciplines. Here in particular, a subset of countermeasures is discussed, comprising flood hazard mapping, overflow sections in dykes, the reduction of flood flows, object protection, risk communication and public involvement.