Literature from diverse sources such as public expenditure economics, management science, geography, agriculture, and engineering reveals a wide range of decision frameworks for deriving flood mitigation strategies. These different types of decision frameworks are reviewed in this paper. The aim is to provide an understanding of these frameworks, along with their relative adequacies and inadequacies. Such an understanding reveals the directions along which the formulation of a more adequate framework should proceed. However, the formulation of a given decision framework is influenced by the types of economic benefits associated with the flood mitigation measures considered in that framework. Hence the various flood mitigation measures are reviewed, prior to the various decision frameworks.
1. INTRODUCTION
The objective of this paper is to review the wide range of decision frameworks which are emvloved in the formulation of flood m•t•gat•on strategies. Such a review warrants an understanding of the various flood mitigation measures and their economic significance. Hence the paper commences with a review of the various flood mitigation measures in section 2. This is followed by a review of the various decision frameworks in section 3. The final section deals with a comparative evaluation of these frameworks.
4.2. Directions in Which Formulation of More Adequate Frameworks May Proceed
Such directions can be examined by considering first the implications of the review of flood mitigation measures. These implications are important because the nature of formulation of decision frameworks depends on the type of flood mitigation measures considered in that framework.
The review in section 2 reveals that the analysis of flood insurance decisions may be considered as a step subsequent to the analysis of decisions pertaining to all other measures of flood mitigation. Such a procedure is suggested to accommodate feasibly low insurance premiums (see section 2.2.2). Besides, as shown by Day [1969, 1970] and Kaul [1976], flood proofing decisions can be readily incorporated as components of land use decisions (see sections 2.2.1 and 2.2.3). Hence the formulation of a more adequate framework may require the consideration of only structural measures, land use decisions, and flood warning systems
