Implementation of a Flood Damage Reduction Strategy in the Red River Basin - Technical Paper No. 8

A watershed and ecological systems approach should be fundamental to an implementation strategy for flood damage reduction within the Red River basin. The purpose of this paper is to aid in the selection of appropriate flood control methods. The general criteria by which projects should be evaluated are as follows: • Flood control effectiveness (including both local and downstream); • Environmental impacts (positive or negative); and • Affordability. Flood control effectiveness requires identifying both the local effectiveness and the downstream effectiveness of the project. Timing of the storage as ,,vell as the volume of storage provided by a project is especially critical when using the project for downstream flood control. Environmental impacts of any potential project must be considered. Affordability depends not only on the value of the benefits but also on the availability of funding sources. This paper includes a summary of programs available to fund certain aspects of multipurpose projects.