Against the background of an increased number of flood events and the dependency of their impacts on how the surrounding land is used, it has become evident that technical solutions have only a limited effect.  New approaches to flood management, including the restoration of rivers’ natural flood zones, have become indispensable.  In this book section, Thomas Dworak, Head of Ecologic Vienna, analyses current EU policies and how they can be used for the restoration of floodplain areas.  He presents a detailed and systematic assessment of the opportunities and challenges arising from water and non-water related EU policies.

The section was published in the book "Restoring Floodplains in Europe" by Timothy Moss and Jochen Monstadt. The book addresses the complex institutional dimensions in restoring floodplains.  Despite the recent surge of interest in restoring floodplains among policy and research circles, as well as in the public domain, very few schemes for restoring functional floodplains have been put into practice in Europe to date.

The book explores the reasons behind this discrepancy between interest and applications with an original, comparative analysis of the institutional drivers and constraints of floodplain restoration in Europe.  It explains why so few projects have been successfully implemented, how recent policy shifts are creating new opportunities for floodplain restoration, and what lessons for policy development and project management can be drawn from in-depth analysis of past and present schemes.  The book critically appraises the relationship between macro-level policy development and enforcement and micro-level project design and implementation.