. . . muttered the ogre

New Scientist: Europe’s worst ever floods linked to poor land management:

Engineers have channelled all the major rivers that flooded this month – draining wetlands, straightening meanders and cutting them off from their flood plains with high banks.

The aim was to protect surrounding land from floods and send the water down to the sea as fast as possible. But instead it has tended to create massive and comparatively sudden surges of water down the rivers, where in the past the water would have been delayed for days or even weeks as it meandered across the river’s natural flood plain.

Oh dear, a genuine public goods problem. I suppose cities downstream could contract with owners of land in the floodplains upstream, but that just transfers the free rider problem.