ABSTRACT
Engineering, farming and floodplain planning are all activities that occur in Britain, as elsewhere, within an institutional context. Moreover, many hazard reduction and agricultural improvement policies in Britain, although dominated by institutional factors, require individuals to be actively involved to realise their objectives. The institutional context of flood alleviation and land drainage extends beyond statutorily defined government and specialist agencies. The Institution of Civil Engineers and the Institution of Municipal Engineers both seek to maintain professional standards and to provide a relatively closed forum for debating issues of mutual importance to land drainage and flood alleviation. The agricultural emphasis deeply pervades all institutional arrangements for flood alleviation including the law, organisational structures, economic context and financing arrangements, which are only marginally different between Scotland and England and Wales. The institutional system for both flood alleviation and agricultural drainage primarily benefits farmers and landowners.
