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    Strategic flood hazard management : a planning process : case study Horowhenua : a thesis presented in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Regional Planning at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1990) Bills, Kathleen Patricia
    This thesis uses the strategic planning process as a framework to derive a practical planning process for flood hazard management in the Horowhenua. The broad goal of the study is 'To Provide a Better Planning Process for Mitigating Flood Hazards in the Study Area of the Horowhenua.' The strategic planning process is used to develop an action plan for one particular organisation, the Manawatu Wanganui Regional Council, to help mitigate flood hazards in the Horowhenua. However, the principles identified in the process are of use to other organisations and for other geographic areas. A large part of achieving the broad goal of the study was to increase understanding of the flood hazard problem of the Horowhenua area. A large component of this thesis is therefore, the scanning of the environments relevant to the flood hazard problems. These environments include the physical, institutional and behavioural components of the flood hazard problem. From this scanning 'key issues' which help to further understand the problem are identified. These issues are taken into consideration in an action plan for one organisation. The action plan provides a process whereby the issues and the interrelationships between these issues are identified for consideration in flood hazard management. Planners of the organisation can link into the process, as resources become available, with the knowledge that the information they produce and subsequent action taken will link into an overall process. Although the thesis attempts to identify all the issues that need to be considered in a flood hazard management planning process, it still acknowledges that there will always be problems and uncertainties such as political and financial constraints limiting the process.
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    The quantification of indirect benefits from flood protection in the lower Waikato : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Applied Economics in Natural Resources at Massey University
    (Massey University, 2002) Quazi, Mohammad Asif
    Flood protection schemes provide a wide range of benefits to people living in the immediate floodplain area and to those living further away from the floodplain area. Since such schemes are public goods, they are often provided and managed by the government or local bodies. According to the Local Government Act (No.3) of 1996, the community based funding of such works are to be allocated purely according to benefit received. In other words, those who benefit from the works are required to contribute towards the costs of the works, in proportion to the benefits they received. Hence the need for the quantification of benefits. The Rating Powers Act of 1988 requires the rating of flood protection schemes to take into account direct and indirect beneficiaries. In this research the aim was to quantify the indirect benefits from flood protection in the Lower Waikato, using the non-market valuation technique of Contingent Valuation. In particular the study focused on the indirect beneficiaries of the Lower Waikato Waipa Flood Control Scheme (LWWCS). A total of 800 households in the indirect benefit area of the LWWCS were sent a mail questionnaire to elicit their willingness to pay for indirect flood protection. A return rate of 31 percent was obtained. The results obtained indicated that 56.8 percent of the respondents perceived to benefit from the LWWCS, and 65.3 percent respondents believed that flood protection was worth paying for. The dollar value allocated to indirect flood protection in the Lower Waikato was estimated at $21.40 per year per household.
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    Economic considerations for zoning as a process of flood protection in Bangladesh : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Agricultural Economics, Massey University
    (Massey University, 1991) Ahmad, Kamal Uddin
    Bangladesh, a predominately agricultural country in the Third World, with 110 million people and only 9 million hectares of cultivable land, is known worldwide for its frequency of severe floods and other natural hazards like cyclones, tornadoes and epidemics. Increased pressure on the scarce land resources for food and habitation of the growing population is the main consideration for any agricultural project formulation. Successive development plans of Bangladesh have tried to address different socioeconomic problems by spreading limited available resources thinly over different sectors, although self sufficiency in food grain production has been targeted by politicians as well as researchers. Recently, the agricultural sector has planned for growth through the development of water resources management, in particular flood protection, as this is the primary source of all development activities in the country. The decision making processes of farmer is taken as the main focus of this dissertation. Farming in Bangladesh, mostly for subsistence, may be a profitable or a losing concern, depending on the selection of the crop mix. In other words, farming depends on the decision making process of the farmers. The farm environment in a flood protected project area is described along with its agrosocio-ecological linkages. Flood mitigation literatures describing optimising crop mix technologies are reviewed. Theoretical details of different quantitative methods were brought together for the purpose of selection of an appropriate analytical model to capture the diversified nature of farming. The selection process utilised concepts, data and theories from relevant academic disciplines to find a model that could address a set of problems related to decision making at the grass roots level. The empirical work of this dissertation is mainly based upon a survey of production relations in agriculture. The survey comprises randomly but purposively chosen farmer respondents within groups in order to capture a general picture of some agrarian relations for a specific flood control project - the Meghna Dhonagoda Irrigation Project. A linear programming model was formulated. The coefficients of the model were estimated from the survey data. Given average resource endowments possessed by different groups of farmers, optimal cropping patterns for various situation were found. The model was run for five groups of farmers, under both with and without project conditions. The results obtained from the model runs show that rice production in all farms increases by 140 to 383 percent. At the same time production of other crops diminishes significantly. The net year ending savings of group A (small) farmers decreases by 7 percent although their living standard is improved (indicated by increased family rice consumption and expenses). Group B (middle) farmers are in a slightly improved position, with a 1.5 percent increase in net year ending savings whereas the net year ending savings of groups C and D (large farmers) is doubled. The achievements of groups C and D compared to those of groups A and B shows the anomaly in welfare distribution of the public investments. The impact on net return due to changes in resource endowments or crop coefficients is obtained from sensitivity and range analysis. It indicates the profitability or shadow cost for individual constraints. Before implementation of the project, farmers often mixed different crops in the same field to reduce the risk if a particular crop failed. They grew a variety of staple crops and vegetables to meet family food needs and they rarely purchased artificial chemical fertilisers or pesticides. In other words, they were diversified and less susceptible to the natural disasters. After the project, farmers were much less diversified and used more artificial inputs. Three significant features of the public investment in flood protection and irrigation arose: a) Rapid economic growth, though with significant evidence of diminishing returns b) Increased rice production at the expense of other crops c) Unequal welfare disfribution between rich and poor. The results obtained through model runs conform to general trends. All available evidence indicates that past improvements to flood control and irrigation contributed significantly to the growth in agricultural production in Bangladesh. The complementarity between proven yield-increasing technologies and water application points out the importance of water resources development. Thus there should be no question about the desirability of flood control projects. But equitable distribution of facilities, or at least betterment of the majority of population, may not be achieved at the desired rate.
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    Sink or swim : the implementation of flood hazard reduction in the lower North Island, New Zealand : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Resource and Environmental planning at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1996) Harding, Kim Marie
    This thesis examines how flood hazard reduction is currently being implemented by local government in the Lower North Island of New Zealand. Recent reforms of environmental and local government legislation have placed responsibility for flood hazard management firmly onto local government. Under the previous regime flood hazard management was primarily the responsibility of government bodies such as the National Water and Soil Conservation Organisation and implemented at the local level through catchment and water boards and territorial local authorities. Flood hazard management under this regime was incremental, and resulted in a bias towards the use of structural protection for flood hazard control. Territorial local authorities were variable in their attempts to use land use planning as a means of controlling development on floodplains. This research aimed to determine how local councils were implementing their flood hazard responsibilities under the Resource Management Act 1991. A case study of six district councils, and two regional councils in the Lower North Island was undertaken. Several methods were used in conducting this research. District plans and regional policy statements were analysed by a plan coding method, which enabled the assessment of the ways in which councils were implementing flood hazard reduction. Interviews with the relevant staff were also carried out to ascertain the institutional and organisational environment within which planning staff were implementing flood hazard reduction. The research findings suggest that Territorial Local Authorities continue to be variable in their approaches in implementing flood hazard reduction. District and city councils are continuing to rely on the use of structural protection as the main method of flood hazard reduction. This was often at the expense of investigating the use of other methods of flood hazard control. The councils in this study cited a lack of information as the main reason for their inaction in relation to proactive flood hazard reduction. Despite this, the two regional councils were both taking an active role in assisting Territorial Local Authorities in flood hazard reduction. Although the regional councils appeared to be fulfilling their responsibilities satisfactorily, it became evident that there were communication difficulties between regional councils and the district and city councils. The plans also revealed that some basic Resource Management Act requirements, for example monitoring were not being fulfilled. Overall, it was found that the district and city councils were continuing to rely on structural protection for flood hazard reduction and, in some instances, are struggling to fulfil the basic requirements of the Resource Management Act.