IFI Newsletter

Issue No. 1
International FLOOD Initiative

March 2009

About IFIThe International Flood Initiative (IFI) focuses on research, information
networking, education and training, empowering communities and providing
technical assistance and guidance for Integrated Flood Management. IFI is aframeworkforpromotingcollaboration

among

relatedinternationalorganizations such as UNESCO, the World Meteorological Organisation(WMO), the United Nation University (UNU) and the International Strategy for
Disaster Reduction (ISDR). IFI made its official launch in January 2005 at theWorld Conference on Disaster Reduction (WCDR) in Kobe, Japan. The IFI
Secretariat is located in the International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk
Management (ICHARM) in Tsukuba, Japan.
The overall aim of the initiative is to build capacity in countries to understandand better respond to floods by taking advantage of their benefits while
minimizing their social, economic and environmental risks. The IFI partners atpresent include the International Association of Hydrological Science (IAHS),
the International Association of Hydraulics Engineering and Research (IAHR)
and the Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR).

Date: 21 March 2009
Time: 17:00-19:00
Venue/Room: Feshane/F 4 Hall
Capacity: 200
Registration fee: free

In response to increasing worldwide flood disasters and related damages, this workshop
is organized by the International Flood Initiative (IFI) to catalyze a global agenda
toward Integrated Flood Management. IFI partners will report on their activities toimprove today's flood management too. See page two for more detail.

In this issue:

IFI Newsletter is a semiannual and non-commercial publication
to develop information networking and promote the exposure ofIFI activities. It is distributed via e-mail. For subscription please
send your request to info@ifi-home.info
They can also be downloaded from the IFI website.

About IFI …………………………….…..1
IFI Workshop……………………….…….1
IFI News……………………….………2&3
Interview with IFI partners……………2&3
Coming Events……….….….….…..…….4

Interview: Prof. Slobodan Simonovic
Institute for Catastrophic Loss Reduction (ICLR)ICLR is a research institute, established by Canada’s
property and casualty insurers, working to reduce disasterlosses. The Institute is internationally recognized for its
leadership in multi-disciplinary disaster prevention
research. Quality research provides the foundation for
better public policy and disaster management.

Q. Have you ever experienced any flood personally?
A. Yes! Actually, I went through the largest flood that occurred in Canada
in the recent years. That was the 1997 flood in the Red River Basin, Canadaand US. At that time I lived in the city of Winnipeg. After the flood of1997, governments of Canada and US asked International Joint
Commission (IJC) to investigate floods of this magnitude and larger. I wasfortunate to be appointed by Canadian government to the IJC international
task force. It had the most significant influence on my personal andprofessional life.
Q. You were the chairman of the organizing committee for the 4thInternational Symposium of Flood Defence in Toronto in May 2008.
Can you summarize the findings of the symposium?
A. The Symposium was attended by more than 300 participants from allover the world. One of the most significant issues discussed at theSymposium was the impact of a long-term change - such as climate change,
population growth and economic development – on the variation in
frequency and magnitude of flood event Findings of the Symposium aresummarized in the Toronto statement. One of the recommendations is tocontinue strengthening the application of interdisciplinary and integrated
flood management principles and practices, together with the combinationof structural and non-structural flood management measures.
Q. What can be the contribution of ICLR to IFI?
A. ICLR is involved with various applied research activities related to
management of floods. One of the areas that is very high on our agenda is
impact of climate change. Various projects are being conducted by theresearchers in our Institute on this topic. Our experience from this work
could represent one of the main contributions to IFI.
Slobodan P. Simonovic is currently
Professor of Civil and Environmental
Engineering at the University ofWestern Ontario and the Director ofEngineering Studies with theInstitute for Catastrophic LossReduction. He has over thirty yearsof research, teaching and consulting
experience in water resources
systems engineering. Up to now hehassupervised
13
doctoralcandidates. He has been involved in
the IFI related activities from thebeginning. He is also chair of the ad
hoc committee for International
Conference on Flood Management.
“My message to young researcher is that research they are involved
with should offer new theoretical contributions, but also should be ofvalue in solving practical water resources management problems.”

IFI News
IFI Workshop in WWF5 in March 21, 2009:This side event is organized by the International
Flood Initiative (IFI) to catalyze a global agenda
toward Integrated Flood Management. IFI partners
will report on their activities to improve today's flood
management under changing natural and social
condition too. The main conveners of the event are
UNESCO, WMO, UNU, UN/ISDR and ICHARM as
the IFI Secretariat. Other IFI partners such as IAHS,IAHR and ICLR will also take part in the workshop.

IFI in the Second Global Platform for DRR:
IFI will be participating actively in the second Global
Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (16-18 June,2009-Geneva). IFI is now trying to organize a specificsession in the platform on Flood Risk Reduction upon
agreement of the platform organizer. The 4th IFI
Advisory and Management Committee will be held at
Geneva-WMO Headquarters back to back with thisevent.

Inside NewsInterview: Prof. Arthur Mynett
3rd IFI Meeting
The third meeting of the Advisory Committee(AC) and Management Committee (MC) of theInternational Flood Initiative (IFI) was held at
ICHARM on 2 October 2008. The main agenda ofthis joint meeting was to propose the IFI Action
Plan. Following the review of the IFI mapping
activities exercise, the discussion on the IFI Action
Plan went to emphasize the role of the initiative insynthesizing what we already know on flood
issues and translating available research andstudies to an understandable format for flood
policy makers. In order to formulate sensible IFI
outcomes, three types of IFI products were
proposed:- IFI briefs: About 2 pages (at most 4 pages); abrochure-type
multilingual
publication
tocommunicate flood issues and available solutions
to governments and policy makers. They can be ina printed format or web-based.
- IFI reference series: A kind of guidebooks andmanuals to fulfill gaps and elaborate in detail onflood issues and solutions for practical use withrespect to ongoing activities at WMO and various
other available texts.
- IFI web tutorials: web-based education andtraining with respect to the available e-courses atUNU and UNESCO-IHE.
In order to promote the exposure of IFI activities,
it was agreed that the IFI Secretariat at ICHARM
should publish IFI newsletters. They can be
distributed using the UNESCO-IHP network as
well as WMO-CHy and other relevant networks.
The next meeting of the IFI AC/MC will be held at
Geneva-WMO Headquarters on the occasion of
the 2nd Global Platform for Disaster Risk
Reduction (16-18 June 2009).

International Flood Initiative

IFI representative for IAHR
Arthur E. Mynett is a professor ofEnvironmental Hydroinformatics at
WL Delft Hydraulics as well as
UNESCO-IHE in the Netherlands.
He is also the director of theStrategicResearchandDevelopment at Delft Hydraulics.
As a member of the IAHR Council,
he is the chair of the International
Flood Initiative Working Group ofIAHR. He has been involved in theIFI related activities since thebeginning.

The International Association of Hydraulic Engineeringand Research (IAHR) promotes the advancement andexchange of knowledge on water resources, river andcoastal hydraulics, risk analysis, energy, environmentand disaster prevention. IAHR is a member of IFI
Management Committee.

Q. I have noticed a small IAHR flag on your suit. Can you talk about IFI
related activities by IAHR?
A. Various IAHR sections can contribute to IFI. For example, we have vast
experience through our expert network on river hydraulics, hydroinformatics,ecohydraulics, etc., which can contribute to IFI. I will try to put together such
expertise and knowledge as the chairman of the IFI working group at IAHR.
Q. How many PhD students have graduated under your supervision?
A. I have supervised six doctoral candidates and I am supervising five more now.
Q. What is your message to young researchers in the field of floodmanagement?
A. We have to always remember that flood is not only a matter of water quantity.
There are many other research aspects, such as water quality, health issues andpost flood environmental impacts. I think in these topics we still have a lot to do.
Q. What do you think is the most important to be considered in future IFI
activities?
A. Floor management is very much depended on local conditions. For example,
flood risk reduction in a small steep mountainous river in an arid zone might havedifferent options from those for floods in delta areas in the Netherlands. While IFI
is an international initiative and should work on a global scale, IFI should also
consider localism to address floods on a local scale.

IFI Newsletter

Issue No. 1March 2009

Coming EventsThe International Conference on Flood Management (ICFM) is the new title for the International Symposiums onFlood Defence (ISFD). This is the only international conference fully focused on flood issues so far, and it is the bestplace to share your research results, experiences and achievements in flood management with other researchers,
engineers and policy makers.
The 5th International Conference on Flood Management (ICFM5) will be held in Japan in Autumn 2011. The ICFM5
will be hosted by the International Centre for Water Hazard and Risk Management (ICHARM) under the auspices ofUNESCO.
For more information, please visit: http://www.ifi-home.info/ICFM.html

Integrated Flood Management HelpDesk
An introduction to IFI partners activities:

WMO - Associated Program on Flood Management (APFM)
The HelpDesk for Integrated Flood Management (IFM HelpDesk) is a facility that will provide guidanceon flood management policy, strategy, and institutional development related to flood issues for countries
that want to adopt the Integrated Flood Management concept in close partnership and tailored to theneeds of the particular partner, with the aim of helping the partners further in IFM implementation.
Background
Application of the IFM concept can bea challenging task. The challenge lies
in striking and sustaining an optimalbalance between the development
needs and the risks associated with theuse of flood-prone land, within given
institutional structures. At this stage,
animpartialandcompetentdevelopment partner in this specificarea with operational capacities torespond to country's needs in IFM
implementation is urgently required.

Need more information?
For more information visit the IFM
HelpDesk webpage. You can accessto various information from theirwebpage including a concept noteon IFM HelpDesk. Moreover thelatest news on launching theHelpDesk is also available in thewebsite.

http://www.apfm.info/helpdesk.htm