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Flood management
Regional and local councils do lots of work to help:
- reduce the risk of flooding for communities
- fix things after flooding happens.
Before a flood
To help make people safer, councils:
- make maps of where river flooding is most likely to happen so people who live or work in these places can plan ahead
- make sure people don’t put houses in places where flooding is most likely
- build stop banks and other things to help stop rivers from overflowing
- take things like logs and plants out of rivers. During a storm, these things can clog the pipes that rivers use to go under roads. If a pipe clogs, it can cause a flood.
During a flood
Councils start collecting information as soon as weather forecasters say a storm is coming. Councils use it to figure out if the storm could make local rivers flood.
Councils also check local rivers for things that could cause floods. If they find problems, they fix them. If they see something like a log that could clog a stream and cause a flood, they take it away.
During a big storm, councils keep watching for signs that flooding could happen. They share what they find with people at the Local Emergency Management Office. Emergency managers use this information to help keep the community up to date and warn people if there is an emergency.
After a flood
When it’s safe, councils work with other groups to clean up. They also visit all of the things they’ve built to help prevent flooding. They need to check if the flood damaged them and fix them. Councils focus on activities that help make people safe first. Depending on how big the flood is, it can take a long time to clear the mess and fix important river structures.
Complete the Flood management quiz >
Discover more about flooding and preparing for floods >