International Handbook for Emergency Response to Flood Risk: A call for collaboration

Abstract

Flood emergency response is an essential component of a flood risk management strategy. Effective flood emergency response depends on implementing the appropriate measures, and on executing them correctly. The skills and expertise of emergency management teams play a crucial role in this response. It is crucial that all involved work along commonly agreed lines. To achieve this, an initiative is launched to arrive at an International Handbook for Emergency Response to Flood Risk. This handbook will provide these “commonly agreed lines”, covering flood emergency response management in general and will include topics such as failure mechanisms, techniques for intervention, logistics and health & safety. It will showcase good practices and will share lessons learnt from flood emergency response approaches all over the world. In this way it will be an invaluable tool to train staff in the operation of flood fighting and to ascertain that the assistance from (international) flood fighting colleagues is at the appropriate level. During the FLOODrisk 2020 Conference, a first framework of this International Handbook is presented and discussed with the participants to ensure the framework meets their needs. We will extend an invitation to participants to provide suggestions and to join forces in this initiative. We are aiming to formalise this initiative towards the end of 2021.