A CRUCIAL review of flood management in Victoria is two years behind schedule, ensuring that multimillion-dollar recommendations were not acted on before this month's floods.
More than 20 months after it was due for release, a draft review of the ''Victoria Flood Management Strategy'' is still sitting within the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), and last night there was still no sign of its release.
Despite the review remaining under wraps, The Age understands it found there was a paucity of proper flood-mapping across the state, and recommended a dramatic increase in this field of science.
Flood-mapping is where sections of land are assessed for their topography, composition and role in the water cycle, and the mapping can help predict where and how floodwaters will behave across a landscape.
The draft is believed to suggest that the state government spend several hundred million dollars over 10 years increasing its flood-mapping work across Victoria.
The mapping can help prevent inappropriate development in flood-prone regions and inform work around how best to protect those towns and assets built in places that are vulnerable to floods.
Based on the amount of money expected to be lost to flood damage over a 50-year period, the review is believed to have found a cost-benefit ratio of 2.4 to 1 in favour of increased spending on flood-prevention measures such as flood mapping.
The 1998 strategy is supposed to be reviewed every 10 years, and the draft review was promised to be released in December 2008 ahead of the full review publication in June last year.
DSE spokeswoman Kim Payne defended the delayed release yesterday. ''The review involves complex issues, including the long term impact of climate change, that have evolved significantly since work began and is expected to be completed mid-next year,'' she said.
Despite the delays, Ms Payne said DSE had a comprehensive system in place to monitor and mitigate flood risks.
''The government contributes $1 million a year towards flood mitigation works such as upgrading levees,'' she said.
Multiple sources suggested it had simply been neglected because DSE was more focused on drought and bushfire efforts.
University of Melbourne water management professor Hector Malano said he could not comment on whether Victoria's flood mapping had been inadequate, but confirmed it was an area that required updating.
''The technology is changing and at the same time the land-use is changing … the catchments are changing too, there is land-clearing, agriculture and so on, so what happened 10 years ago may not be very applicable today,'' he said.
''No one worried very much about flooding in the last 10 years because we had 10 years of drought.''
But Damian Wells from the North Central Catchment Management Authority - a regional organisation responsible for monitoring this week's flood - said the response had been ''very, very competent'' in recent days and had saved towns such as Donald from worse damage.
The strategy is one of two documents governing flood management in Victoria, with another - the State Flood Response Plan - run by the State Emergency Service.
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