Today’s great ambition is to learn how to “manage a crisis and reduce a risk”. A flood mitigation policy was instigated several years ago. Public authorities are trying to reduce contingency factors by “moderate” speed-reducing techniques. These “moderate” techniques represent a totally different approach to the major works of dam or dyke construction. As a parallel measure, government and local authorities alike are seeking to reduce vulnerability factors. Their objective is to reduce the amount of flood damage. I shall give particular attention to developing this second point. Vulnerability is the fundamental concept of French mitigation policy. This concept is a means of expressing the capacity of an element at risk (a house, business, or public sector establishment) to resist in the face of a given event. The most important action to be taken is to reduce the vulnerability:

• Of houses, which serve as a refuge for individuals.
• Of businesses, for which the economic consequences are considerable.
• Of public sector establishments and networks, necessary for crisis management.

Risk reduction for constructions consists:

• in learning how to build in an intelligent manner,
• taking into account constraints imposed by the possibility of flooding,
• so as to rehabilitate existing buildings
• whilst integrating these factors into their daily life and activities.

Three objectives will be pursued:

• Providing for the evacuation of people (by helicopter or by boat) or enabling both victims and rescuers to wait safely for the flood to subside
• Avoiding damage to furniture or buildings
• Facilitating cleaning and drying, in order to allow reinstallation in clean and safe conditions.

Dependent on whether the person in charge is the state, the local authorities or the citizen, three different administrative procedures exist, to reduce the risk.

1. The Risk Prevention Plan (PPR) is a State tool designed entirely for natural and technological risk prevention.
2. Documentations concerning land occupancy, (like Local Urban Planning and the Territorial Planning Outline) should incorporate risks. Those documents are under the rseponsability of local authorities
3. Environmental improvement programmes - “Opérations Programmées de l’amélioration de l’habitat” (OPAH), which release finances to enable owners to carry out works on their house.