Resource Manual on Flash Flood Risk Management: Module 1 Community-based Management

This publication is the first module of the ‘Resource Manual on Flash Flood Risk Management’ prepared under the project ‘Capacity Building for Flash Flood Risk Management and Sustainable Development in the Himalayas’, supported by the United States Agency for International Development, Offi ce for Foreign Disaster

Assistance (USAID/OFDA). Floods are a major hazard in the Hindu Kush-Himalayan (HKH) region and infl ict suffering on large numbers of people, especially the poor and vulnerable. Most past approaches to alleviating this hazard have concentrated on structural measures, or measures with strong central dominance and little or no role for the communities exposed to the hazard. Unlike riverine fl ods, flash floods are rapid-onset events that are often

unpredictable, or predictable with little lead time. Most fl ash flood events take place in remote, isolated catchments where the central government’s reach is usually nonexistent or very limited. When flash floods strike, external help can take several days to reach the affected communities, during which time they are left to cope on their own.

 

Technological advances and institutional arrangements for disaster risk management are gradually improving in the region, although this process takes a long time. Hence, it is essential to build the communities’ capacity to manage flash floods and other disaster risks by themselves. As it is, every household does attempt to manage disaster risk according to its individual capacity, but the effectiveness of these efforts can be enhanced if individual efforts are coordinated. A community fl ash fl ood risk management committee (CFFRMC) is a good mechanism to unite the efforts of community members. This module puts CFFRMC at the centre of all phases of fl ash fl ood risk management.