Yes of course local authorities should build levees, & then maintain them properly, & the drainage past them.

However they would then have to compensate those outside the chosen levees path, as the restriction of levees will make the flood higher & water flow faster than before.

Can you imagine the bun fights in councils at meetings deciding the rout & sighting of levees. Should be a good spectator blood sport.

The simple fact is that people who loose property to floods have done so because of their own life choices. When you live in a known flood zone it is reasonable to expect that you will, at some stage in the future, experience a flood- it is a foreseeable event by anyone with commonsense. Since events like these are foreseeable and the damage easily avoidable (ie: the damage is avoided by choosing NOT to live there), then people who suffer flood damage have themselves to blame for their losses.

It's the hallmark of a sensible and mature person that they will look after themselves instead of relying on others to take care of them. Also, a sensible and mature person will not compensate someone's loss unless those people will learn from their mistakes.
Sadly, some people are so stupid/hopeless that they need to personally experience loss for them to gain commonsense. It's tough love but these people shouldn't be helped.

In short, you shouldn't buy/build a house on a KNOWN flood plain unless you can PERSONALLY afford to either: a) mitigate the threat (eg: build levies) or b) repair/rebuild when it floods- it is as simple as that.

Thinkabit,
Why didn’t I think of thar, my cousins, who grow wheat and run a beef herd could have built their house on some of my son’s rocky and unproductive land for free and they’d have been absolutely safe from the water, of course they’d be 200 miles from home.

If you wish to eat in the cities then lots of people have to live on the plains country.

Dredging rivers doesn’t work because if you made the river deep enough to have any effect then in periods of low water the water table would drain into the deep channel and. the grass and trees would die.
The only way to protect towns is with levees and powerful pumps to keep the water down within the area protected by the levees.

Is Mise: "If you wish to eat in the cities then lots of people have to live on the plains country."

Yep, some farmland floods. All this means is that the farmer has to factor this into their calculations about the risk v's the return of their business. This doesn't mean that no farm should be located on a flood plain. It is perfectly reasonable for a person to farm a flood plain; provided that the losses from flood caused crop failures are less than the profit in non-flood years. But here's the rub: it's the farmer's personal responsibility to determine the risk v's reward BEFORE buying the land and farming.

If we start bailing out farmer's/rural retailers/etc, who aren't good businessmen and didn't do their maths right when determining the expected returns of their enterprise in the long term then you are effectively penalizing those people who did. Bad businessmen going broke is a GOOD thing- it's the economy pruning the bad wood from the system and making space for good businessmen to flourish and this benefits the whole of society overall.

And it's the same for residents in a rural town on a flood plain, they need to factor into their calculations the cost of flooding versus the benefits of living there.

If the residents of a town decide that a levee is good idea, then THEY, THEMSELVES, should pay for it, since it is THEIR town.

Thinkabit,
Do you apply the same reasoning to bush fires??

IsMise: "Do you apply the same reasoning to bush fires??"

Of course.

But it applies way more generally. I use this reasoning in any situation where there is a risk from a known/foreseeable event AND they had other options to take or its was possible to take no action at all. If people are willing take such chances then if they suffer a financial loss as a result they shouldn't be bailed-out by the general public.