Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management: A Manual for Economic Appraisal

A new ‘Multi-Coloured Manual'

This book is a successor to and replacement for the highly respected manual and handbook on the benefits of flood and coastal risk management, produced by the Flood Hazard Research Centre at Middlesex University, UK, with support from Defra and the Environment Agency. It builds upon a previous book known as the "multi-coloured manual" (2005), which itself was a synthesis of the blue (1977), red (1987) and yellow manuals (1992). As such it expands and updates this work, to provide a manual of assessment techniques of flood risk management benefits, indirect benefits, and coastal erosion risk management benefits.

It has three key aims. First it provides methods and data which can be used for the practical assessment of schemes and policies. Secondly it describes new research to update the data and improve techniques. Thirdly it explains the limitations and complications of Benefit-Cost Analysis, to guide decision-making on investment in river and coastal risk management schemes.

All the authors work at or in conjunction with the Flood Hazard Research Centre (FHRC) at Middlesex University, London, UK. The FHRC has a distinguished 40-year history of interdisciplinary research in this field. It has been commended for this by two Chief UK Government Scientific Advisors, Sir David King and Sir John Beddington, and by the award of a prestigious Queen’s Anniversary Prize. This book is an output of new research projects and activities carried out under the joint sponsorship of the UK’s Environment Agency and the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs following the severe flooding in the UK in 2007.