The floods in Germany are an important reminder of the challenges within national preparedness
Harriet Lonka & Vesa-Pekka Tervo
21.7.2021
The large-scale floods in Germany are a reminder of the challenges of national preparedness in Europe, challenges that may have been pushed into the background due to the corona crisis. The ongoing IRWIN research project examines the development needs within national preparedness from the perspectives of information resilience and complex governance environments. From a legal point of view, it is a question of, among other things, the utilisation of information in the regulation of the division of resources and responsibilities between the various actors within national preparedness.
The threat of floods is also relevant in Finland – a threat that is especially well known in Northern and Western parts of Finland, where different types of floods are experienced every year. Finland has a century’s worth of experience in managing floods by means of regulating different bodies of water. Water management and legislation have long been our core-competencies within environmental economics. However, types of floods that occur less frequently, beyond the memory of man, in for example the waters of lake Saimaa, could well take us by surprise.
The hydrological know-how of Finland and Germany and the scientific development of the field are historically comparable. Both the regulation of water bodies in terms of flood risks, and the use of waterways as transport routes and for the promotion of agriculture and fisheries, have always been important for both countries. Despite all the aforementioned, the current situation in Germany raises two questions; how has it been possible for such a shocking nationwide catastrophe to have taken place, and could such a natural catastrophe occur in Finland?
Compared to Sweden, Finland has been lucky in terms of having avoided natural catastrophes. During the 2000’s Sweden has experienced multiple disasters that have affected several provinces. The same natural and meteorological prerequisites for natural disasters exist in Finland as do in neighbouring Sweden.
The legal work package within the IRWIN-project deals with, among other things, the development of regional preparedness and the regulation of situational awareness in Finland. Common regional preparedness began to develop as a concept of legal regulation in connection with the preparation of the Health and Social Services (sote) Reform in 2015-2019. The issues within regional preparedness and the development needs of activities for building situation awareness have subsequently materialized during the corona crisis.
In terms of developing national preparedness, the system, competencies and division of responsibilities must be comparable from the perspective of different threat scenarios. The flow of information between different levels of government, knowledge-based decision-making and management must work in all situations, be it a pandemic, a major flood or a large-scale cyber threat. Sector-specific legislation should identify threats and provide a basis for both sectoral threat preparedness and crisis management, as well as for inter and cross-sectoral cooperation. The corona pandemic has shown that the transition from preparedness to crisis management has not gone smoothly.
The analogy of the corona pandemic fits well with that of the floods. The common denominator in both cases is the description of symptoms upon which the reaction is based. Contingency plans are put in place to manage the ongoing threat. Information received from Germany (The Times 18.7.2021) indicates that the information provided by experts on the possible escalation of the situation was not taken seriously enough, resulting in too slow a response to the catastrophic development of the situation.
Therefore, it seems not to have been a question of lacking information, but rather the information not having reached the decisionmakers on time. Simultaneously received information has also not been utilised sufficiently enough. The lack of information exchange and cooperation between the states has likely also caused problems in the situation (HS 16.7.2021). Similar weaknesses in information exchange and reactions to available information have been witnessed in Finland during the corona crisis, between different regions and especially in the different interpretations made by the Regional State Administrative Agencies (Lonka et al, Focus Localis 2/2021).
What the floods in Germany have especially highlighted, is the need to prepare for even the most wild and outlandish sounding scenarios when making contingency plans for crisis events. Finland ought to quickly learn from this in preparation for new threats. Currently, it seems that those in charge of preparedness planning, do so ex officio in pre-determined groups that are all too familiar to them from before. The worst-case-scenario is that during the planning phase time gets wasted on nitty gritty details, resulting in precious time being lost on inventing ad hoc means to get the situation under control in times of crisis.
The European Commission has funded large scale joint European research projects focused on the management of natural disasters, especially focusing on flash floods and forest fires, in their research programmes throughout the 21st century. It is sad, that this large-scale research activity seems to have resulted in poor real-world applicability. Both academic and field knowledge already exists and is constantly built upon by different parties. How can we best guarantee, that this information be available and applicable in crises and that there would both be willingness and the ability to use it?
Harriet Lonka
Vesa-Pekka Tervo
The authors are researchers in the IRWIN-project. Lonka has a doctorate in legislative studies and works as an R&D specialist at the Laurea School of Applied Sciences. Tervo has a Master of Arts degree and works as a Development Specialist at the Association for Finnish Municipalities.
