ABSTRACT
In the 90s many recommendations were produced on the importance of reducing losses generated by flooding and flood disasters. The focus was restricted to a short period of time centered in an extreme flood event. Integrated Flood Management follows these recommendations with respect to the minimization of the losses of lives, but has a different approach regarding socio-economic aspects. Settling on flood plains has enormous advantages, as is evident from the very high densities of human settlement in for example, The Netherlands and Bangladesh and mainly from the high gross domestic product (GDP) per square kilometer in countries whose territories are composed mostly by
flood plains, such as The Netherlands – which has the highest GDP per square kilometer in Europe.
