ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the transition to Flood Risk Management (FRM) approaches can be viewed as an example of the kind of Risk Society described by Beck. The research present in the chapter illustrates how the government's policy of 'Making Space for Water' is played out in practice, with consequences for how risk and resilience is experienced by the communities concerned. One could, for example, regard Parker's 'escalator effect' as one of Beck's residual risks in microcosm; in that it is a vestige of a particular industrial era, when hubris dictated that all flood hazards could be controlled. In France, compulsory cover for disaster risk has been shared since 1982 amongst all policy holders with an identical additional percentage premium paid on top of assessed premium for fire insurance. The chapter describes by arguing for citizens to be more involved in the decisions that are made around flood risk management and for better support for the process of flood recovery.
