Implementing catchment-wide flood risk management plans: futures and justice conflicts

Climate change is projected to heighten flood risk. To adapt to this higher flood risk, catchment-wide flood risk management (FRM) plans have become increasingly popular. These plans aim to implement risk reduction measures (RRMs), usually in rural areas on privately owned land, with the goal of reducing the vulnerability of downstream/urban regions. These interventions can have ramifications for rural/upstream areas as they restrict such areas’ spatial and economic growth. Despite these unequal outcomes of distributive justice, reasons for using the countryside/upstream areas are multifaceted, such as lowering the costs of implementation or attaining further co-benefits. In this paper, we aim to analyse how anticipated futures are used to legitimise the unequal distributive consequences of catchment-wide FRM. We combine insights from future studies involving a future perspective (expected, preferable, and probable futures) and the distributive justice literature to examine the debate on large-scale catchment-wide FRM plans in Austria and the Netherlands. In both countries, the debates remain rather implicit, even though the subsequent decisions can have substantial repercussions for the distribution of burdens and benefits. Whereas in the Netherlands expected futures are contested, in Austria desired justice implications are contested between authorities and locals. On the one hand, futures are harnessed by quanitifying desired futures and by embedding expected futures in decision-making tools. On the other hand, credibility of expected futures is descreased by framing them as more uncertain. • Analyses how futures are used to justify catchment-wide FRM plans. • Explicit discussions about futures and justice-related implications of FRM plans are missing. • Mismatches between actors‘ expected and desired futures led to conflict. • Futures are harnessed by quantifying desired futures and by embedding expected futures in decision-making tools (e.g., CBA). • Credibility of expected futures is decreased by framing them as probable – more uncertain – futures.