Councils and the State Emergency Service

Developing the Partnership in Flood and Floodplain Risk Management. Keys, C., Compbell, P., Herbert, M. and Opper, S. (2003) Presented at te 43rd Annual Conference of the Floodplain Management Authorities of NSW, Forbes, 2003

Local government councils and the State Emergency Service (SES) have separate but strongly overlapping interests in floods - councils in flood mitigation matters and in the consent authority role for decisions about land on floodplains, and the SES as the state's legislated 'combat agency' for managing flood events when they actually occur. This paper explores some aspects of the relationship between the SES and councils in reducing the negative impacts of flooding. It makes a number of suggestions about the benefits which would accrue to both sides from a fuller incorporation of the SES in the floodplain risk management process, and it indicates the willingness of the SES to assist councils in the education of community members about the flood threat and its management. This essential element of flood management, it is argued, has been underdeveloped in the past and is in need of more systematic consideration than it has so far received.

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