AKUT Incentive Systems for Municipal Flood Prevention

Consortium Partners

The planned project is a consortium project involving four partners from the fields of research, local government, and industry. In addition to Mainz University of Applied Sciences, the consortium partners include the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, igr AG, and the Enkenbach-Alsenborn Association of Municipalities. Mainz University of Applied Sciences is responsible for leading the consortium and coordinating the project. Mainz University of Applied Sciences ’ contributions to the consortium project focus primarily on formulating target states for long-term flood protection, analyzing the networks of municipal stakeholders and decision-makers in flood protection, and formulating and modeling functional relationships—particularly with regard to adaptation measures, impacts, and costs—as well as implementing these findings as input for the mathematical modeling of the incentive system. Particular interest lies in the development of new, even visionary, approaches to networking stakeholders and fostering their cooperation, as well as ensuring the long-term functionality of municipal infrastructure. The focus of Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences (formerly TU Kaiserslautern) in this project is on investigating specific incentive mechanisms for various stakeholders in the field of municipal flood prevention, as well as on developing an integrated optimization and incentive system for calculating and implementing, via game theory, optimized comprehensive solutions for municipal flood prevention. AKUT is particularly interested in the development and practical application of incentive systems for diverse stakeholders in the municipal context. As an engineering firm, igr GmbH has many years of experience in simulating sewer networks and surface runoff, as well as in flow path analyses, which are used to identify specific hazard and risk situations within the scope of this project. The project contributions of igr GmbH therefore focus primarily on situation and hazard analysis and the classification of problem areas, as well as ensuring the transferability of the findings and the developed advisory tool to other contexts and municipalities. The Enkenbach-Alsenborn Association of Municipalities ’ key areas of focus in the project are stakeholder analysis, defining objectives for municipal flood protection, risk communication, and the application and evaluation of the developed incentive model and advisory tool. In addition, the project involves the targeted preparation of the necessary municipal data on the drainage situation, hazard analysis, and risk assessment for further processing.

The Nordpfälzer Land Association of Municipalities (Rhineland-Palatinate), the Kommunalwirtschaft Mittlere Bergstraße (KMB) in Bensheim (Hesse), the municipality of Elxleben (Thuringia), and the Ministry of the Environment, Food, Energy, and Forestry (MUEEF) of Rhineland-Palatinate have pledged their support due to the high relevance of the topic and the interest in a risk management advisory tool for municipal flood prevention. The project is being supported through the provision of data and expertise to test the advisory tool that has been developed and to ensure its transferability.