Research opportunities in search of federal flood policy

Continuing increases in flood losses raise a variety of issues, and suggest numerous important research opportunities, from: (1) evidence of persistently incorrect economic analysis of structural flood control; (2) lack of understanding of how subsidies (for navigation, structural versus non-structural mitigation, and parts of agriculture) have defeated or subverted flood policies; and (3) lack of understanding of the distortions of urban form resulting from manipulation of hazard mitigation, induced development and inappropriate incentives for municipalities. Without adequate understanding of these topics, policy will fail to reduce flood losses and improve location of investments, and flood policy will continue to be effectively a legitimating rationale for other purposes. But policy-supportive research in re-analysis, historical analysis, and empirical work awaits only recognition of its value. Failure to do the useful work, however, bodes ill for responses to global change and other threats; the research proposed here would help establish methods badly needed for human dimensions research.