In the past thirty years, knowledge on flooding has greatly increased by moving away from purely hydrological and hydraulic science and opening up to other disciplines such as economics or human and geographical sciences. It is as part of this multidisciplinary approach that this book proposes a review of current knowledge on flood risk. It starts with the ever-increasing impact of flooding in order to conceptualize and understand the constituents of risk. Although risk knowledge in modeling methods or naturalist approaches remains essential, it is further developed by the fields of economics, human sciences, geography, environmental psychology and history. This integrated approach to flood risk contextualizes current conclusions on the eventual effects of climate change by showing that human factors are of paramount importance in understanding the process of "risk production".

The management of flood risk seems to be facing a daunting paradox. Despite increasingly effective risk knowledge tools and the efforts of international institutions to place risk reduction at the top of the agenda, the cost of disasters continues to increase. It is also increasingly difficult to avoid the urbanization or development of potential flood zones. The fundamental issue involves determining the conditions necessary for efficient prevention by focusing on adaptability to risk, which implies coping with the risk of flooding rather than directly fighting against it or simply ignoring it. This second volume of the Floods series of books explores existing policies and tools which mitigate the impact of flooding: the construction of protective structures, the reduction of vulnerability, land use planning, the improvement of crisis management, etc. The closing chapters focus on the question of adaptation through post-flood reconstruction, integrating disaster risk reduction measures, e.g. through resilient urbanism.