11. Discussion and conclusion

2. Taxation

A way of raising funds for the municipality and to build up a disaster reserve fund that could be used as a funding for the contingency plan could be through taxation. This taxation will be made in two ways. First a lower disaster taxation to be a part of the tax that the residents of Trondheim pay to the municipality. Secondly, a disaster taxation that will be higher that should be paid by the local businesses. As the area is prone to floods, the local businesses should have an incentive to pay a higher amount as the taxation also could be seen as a cheap form of insurance.

We have laid out on this document the different components of a contingency plan for a chosen scenario. The purpose of plans is of course, to be implemented in case of needed, and only then, the strategies would prove appropriate or not, and this is determined mostly by the unforeseen elements, the ones who build on to the level of complexity and uncertainty of the planning scenario.

In this paper, we argue for a process-focused planning approach, as a way of dealing with uncertainty. We have identified elements of collaboration, local engagement, knowledge exchange, communication, and best practices as to be incorporated to construct a more comprehensive analysis of contingency planning.

To identify the risks for the given scenario and to connect them to the levels of uncertainty is something that also could studied further. As a large part of contingency planning is about addressing and discover uncertainty and the complexity that comes from it. Then dealing with the difficulties of identifying the risks for a given scenario when there is a high level of uncertainty, is in its own something challenging. It should therefore be taken into consideration when approaching and identifying the main risks for a given scenario that they are in fact very uncertain. Of course there are ways of reducing the uncertainty, such as learning from previous events.

Nevertheless, we see the element of experience as highly relevant, especially in the case of best practices, as it is the opportunity when plans prove their effectiveness. The entirety of this

contingency plan is based on a theoretical foundation relying heavily on studies and projections.

Even if some aspects of it where based on experiences from other countries that are prone to floods and have a well-documented history of dealing with it, it is hard to be certain of its efficiency when implemented. This is due to the fact that Norway has very little experience with floods and could very well be blind to some aspects that are part of the Norwegian context that aren’t not present in the chosen case studies. These can manifest in the form of physical aspects or more likely in human unpredictability, as neither the population nor authorities have a recent memory of floods they could as a result be reluctant to engage as they would lack awareness or not be fully sensitized to the danger. Which would put the funding scheme on which this plan is basing a lot of its monetary revenue at risk and thereby in part failing.