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Strategic flood risk management can be described as a section of the wider integrated water management and planning approach for river basins and coastal areas. It focusses on reducing flood risks AND promoting environmental, societal and economic opportunities nowadays AND in the long term (Sayers, et al., 2015). The concept of risk management is under constant evolution, in particular in adopting an adaptive approach, which works with natural processes, contributes to ecosystem services in a positive way and is part of an integrated water management approach (Sayers, et al., 2013; WMO 2009). Although always appreciated in academia and at local scale, the attention for beneficial relationship between floods and ecosystem services at planning level is a rather recent development (Sayers, et al., 2015).

Large flood events have an impact on thinking, policy and practices in flood risk management. The river floods in 1947 and devastating coastal floods of 1953 raised issues on food security and the need for clear roles and responsibilities in flood risk management together with a boost in increased performance of warning systems. The large river floods in several years during the 1990s paved the way for a basin-wide flood risk management and a larger role for non-structural measures in addition to the structural ones and an increased awareness for the role of spatial planning (e.g. in Room for the River and related policies and practices) . The 2007 floods in the UK, and the whole review process (Pitt, 2008) clearly indicates the need to consider all sources of flooding and their combined occurrence as well as the need for detailed spatial information. It is probably too early to define how the recent floods (see section 2.1) in Central Europe and the Balkan shaped and changed our thinking on flood risk management.