Distributional Effects of EU Flood Risk Management and the Law: The Netherlands, Flanders and France as case studies

Abstract

Flood risk management is a policy field in which the distribution of burdens and benefits plays an important role. As flood risks are distributed unequally among the members of society, people in risk areas benefit more from flood risk management than people living in a relatively ‘risk-free’ area. At the same time the infringements of property rights in the case of flood risk management are burdens that a small group of people have to bear in order to benefit a larger group of people, or in some cases, society as a whole. This unequal distribution of burdens is a distributional effect of flood risk management. This research defines distributional effects as ‘the negative consequences of lawful flood risk management that infringe possessions or property rights.’ For example, dispossession or devaluation of property or a loss of income. In order to reduce the adverse effects of flood risk management, compensation regimes are applied. Distributional effects cannot be studied without placing them in a broader context of distributive justice. Aristotelean distributive justice is mostly related to the distribution of benefits (rights, goods or, in this case, flood protection) or welfare, and can be applied to burdens as well. A consequence of the classification of the compensation for distributional effects as part of distributive justice is that a just distribution differs per society and per country, or even per region within a country. One can create a distributive standard to which the goods (or burdens) are allocated in a just manner, taking into account the specific context of the region, which does not demand absolute equality. Measures of flood risk management can be categorized in different strategies, classified by the European Floods Directive. European countries have one or more dominant strategies. The dissertation focusses on three jurisdictions: the Netherlands, the Flemish Region in Belgium and France. These jurisdictions have different dominant strategies, although all are broadening their flood risk management by using more than one strategy. Every strategy is connected to a specific compensation regime that mitigates the burdens caused by flood risk management measures. By changing from one strategy to another, the applicable compensation regime changes as well, although policy-makers are not in all cases aware of this consequence. This research shows that, by having this strong connection between strategies and compensation regimes, burdens are unequally spread internally in France and Flanders and are spread unequally externally between the three countries. The Netherlands can be seen as an example in which compensation takes place in a consistent manner in all strategies. Although the burdens are unequally spread, this does not automatically lead to the conclusion that France has an unjust distribution of burdens, because the perception of distributive justice also differs per country and time.