Floodplain Management: A New Approach for a New Era

Bob Freitag, Susan Bolton, Frank Westerlund, and J. L. S. Clark
Island Press, Washington, DC, 2009
Reviewed in: Journal of Planning and Economic Research (JPER), 2010, 29(4)
 
Review Excerpt:

This is a concise, well-written, no-nonsense how-to book, and the basic ideas and themes are clearly delineated, expanded upon, reinforced, and repeated throughout. It will serve well as a primary or secondary text for courses in floodplain management, natural resources management, coastal zone management, and environmental planning in general. It should also be of interest to property owners, planning professionals, and government officials engaged in the day-to-day work of floodplain management at the federal, state, and local levels. Finally, this book should serve as a bottom-up force for change through the instruction of a future generation of floodplain managers. After all, it has taken nearly a century to arrive at our current man-made, infrastructure-based, river-controlling mindset. It is likely to take decades more to accept and adapt to a more cost-effective, nonstructural approach that relies on natural processes and allows our rivers to continue doing what rivers will do.

— Peter Hendee Brown