[ON HOLD] Flood Control Measures

[Boston Castle]

Yes, I know I have done nothing with my first draft, but I would like to go ahead and get this out there. Comments, suggestions, etc. would be quite helpful.

Note the statement I've made: This is a rought draft, it's not close to being ready for submission, I'm looking more for feedback on content, grammar, and formatting here.

The General Assembly,

RECOGNIZING that many centers of population and critical infrastructure lie adjacent to bodies of water,

FURTHER RECOGNIZING that not all nations have taken preventive measures to ensure that said centres of population and critical infrastructure are protected from flooding,

DESIRING this deficiency in law which might affect lives and property be remedied, hereby:

1. Mandates member states conduct environmental impact studies of flooding prior to the planning or execution of any efforts at mitigation;
   
   
   1. Requires nations to adopt plans to restore areas that might be benefitted by flooding or may serve as natural defenses against flooding;
2. Requires member states to,
   
   
   1. Establish standards to be deemed “flooding” at points along aforementioned bodies of water, relative to the normal level of the body of water, which shall be the standard for when “flooding” is occurring;
      
   2. Identify flooding scenarios which occur most often and their impacts to life and property;
      
   3. Create action plans to protect life and property in low-lying areas that are susceptible to flooding;
      
   4. Establish emergency action plans to be triggered in the event that flooding is occurring at a point or forecast downstream if flooding is occurring at points upstream of critical infrastructure or centers of population;
      
   5. Formulate plans to protect critical infrastructure such as hospitals, power stations, and facilities which deal with drinking water or wastewater;
      
   6. Create infrastructure suitable to flee areas forecast to flood in the event flooding is forecast or a flood is occurring;
3. Requires member states to invest in flood-control infrastructure including, but not limited to:
   
   
   1. Natural floodwater breaks such as wetlands,
      
   2. Man-made structures such as levees, river control structures, secondary channels, and bays;
4. Urges nations to,
   
   
   1. Cooperate with provincial and local authorities, if they exist, to formulate plans for flood response;
      
   2. Invest in training and equipment for emergency response services to deal with life-threatening situations involving flooding;
      
   3. Identify least-likely scenarios for flooding and their impacts and craft plans to ameliorate the impacts for those scenarios.
5. Clarifies that nations may engage in controlled flooding of a body of water provided that they assume the costs inherent in attempting said controlled flooding.

The General Assembly,

RECOGNIZING that many centers of population and critical infrastructure lie adjacent to bodies of water,

FURTHER RECOGNIZING that not all nations have taken preventive measures to ensure that said centres of population and critical infrastructure are protected from flooding,

DESIRING this deficiency in law which might affect lives and property be remedied, hereby:

1. Requires member states to,
   
   
   1. Establish standards to be deemed “flooding” at points along aforementioned bodies of water, relative to the normal level of the body of water, which shall be the standard for when “flooding” is occurring;
      
   2. Identify flooding scenarios which occur most often and their impacts to life and property;
      
   3. Conduct environmental impact surveys of flooding, and of flood damage should it occur, to determine what impacts it has on a community or on an ecosystem to determine what, if any, mitigation actions would be necessary;
      
   4. Create action plans to protect life and property in low-lying areas that are susceptible to flooding;
      
   5. Establish emergency action plans to be triggered in the event that flooding is occurring at a point or forecast downstream if flooding is occurring at points upstream of critical infrastructure or centers of population;
      
   6. Formulate plans to protect critical infrastructure such as hospitals, power stations, and facilities which deal with drinking water or wastewater;
      
   7. Create infrastructure suitable to flee areas forecast to flood in the event flooding is forecast or a flood is occurring;
2. Requires member states to invest in flood-control infrastructure including, but not limited to:
   
   
   1. Restoring natural floodwater breaks such as wetlands,
      
   2. Man-made structures such as levees, river control structures, secondary channels, and bays;
3. Urges nations to,
   
   
   1. Cooperate with provincial and local authorities, if they exist, to formulate plans for flood response;
      
   2. Invest in training and equipment for emergency response services to deal with life-threatening situations involving flooding;
      
   3. Identify least-likely scenarios for flooding and their impacts and craft plans to ameliorate the impacts for those scenarios.
4. Clarifies that nations may engage in controlled flooding of a body of water provided that they assume the costs inherent in attempting said controlled flooding.

The General Assembly,

RECOGNIZING that many centers of population and critical infrastructure lie adjacent to bodies of water,

FURTHER RECOGNIZING that not all nations have taken preventive measures to ensure that said centres of population and critical infrastructure are protected from flooding,

DESIRING this deficiency in law which might affect lives and property be remedied, hereby:

1. Defines “bodies of water” as the following:
   
   
   1. Rivers, bayous, channels, streams, and creeks;
      
   2. Gulfs, bays, lakes, and lagoons;
      
   3. Swamps, mangrove forests, bogs, or wetlands;
2. Defines “floods” as the following:
   
   
   1. When the water from a river, bayou, channel, stream, or creek rises above the level defined as “flood stage” at a gauge on a river, bayou, channel, stream, or creek;
      
   2. When the water from a gulf, bay, lake, or lagoon spills over and above the natural level of containment, or “full pond” in the case of a lake, such that it begins to inundate areas protected by natural or improvised breakwaters;
      
   3. When the water in a swamp, mangrove forest, bog, or wetland begins to seep out of the area inundating main channels of a river, bayou, channel, stream, or creek or is merged with the waters of a gulf, bay, lake, or lagoon;
      
   4. When natural flood control infrastructure is breached and water begins to inundate surrounding areas, regardless of what body of water said breach occurred on;
      
   5. When other natural disasters force water to rise above their natural level causing said waters to inundate other bodies of water or infrastructure;
3. Requires member states to,
   
   
   1. Establish standards to be deemed “flooding” at points along aforementioned bodies of water, relative to the normal level of the body of water, which shall be the standard for when “flooding” is occurring;
      
   2. Identify flooding scenarios which occur most often and their impacts to life and property;
      
   3. Create action plans to protect life and property in low-lying areas that are susceptible to flooding;
      
   4. Establish emergency action plans to be triggered in the event that flooding is occurring at a point or forecast downstream if flooding is occurring at points upstream of critical infrastructure or centers of population;
      
   5. Formulate plans to protect critical infrastructure such as hospitals, power stations, and facilities which deal with drinking water or wastewater;
      
   6. Create infrastructure suitable to flee areas forecast to flood in the event flooding is forecast or a flood is occurring;
4. Requires member states to invest in flood-control infrastructure including, but not limited to:
   
   
   1. Levies,
      
   2. Spillways,
      
   3. River Control Structures,
      
   4. Seawalls,
      
   5. Sandbars,
      
   6. Extensive Vegetation Planting or Maintenance, and
5. Urges nations to,
   
   
   1. Cooperate with provincial and local authorities, if they exist, to formulate plans for flood response;
      
   2. Invest in training and equipment for emergency response services to deal with life-threatening situations involving flooding;
      
   3. Identify least-likely scenarios for flooding and their impacts and craft plans to ameliorate the impacts for those scenarios.

[/list]

[Araraukar]

OOC because in IC my ambassador would be very rude about this particular subject.

First of all, you need to answer the question "what is the problem I am trying to solve here?"

I honestly don't see what it is, here. You have basically listed differents kinds of floods and different kinds of waterway management plans, and then say apply the latter to the former. But why? What is the actual PROBLEM here? Do you really think that nations with floor-prone areas haven't in the most likely thousands of years that people have lived there, had any kind of inkling what to do with repeated flooding? That moden nations with flood-prone areas or, as is common, seasonal floods (monsoon, snowmelt, etc.) have taken no precautions whatsoever? Have no plans made despite already being required to, by an existing resolution?

So, what is the actual problem? That the nations aren't doing enough in your opinion?

Secondly, why the list of different kinds of floods? You don't use the different flood types differently, so why even bother? A "flood" is a common noun and easily understood, why does it need definition to begin with? The only reason I could understand was if you differentiated between intentional flooding (like when a new dam is built, the area upstream of it is usually flooded intentionally, and sometimes rarely water is allowed to flood an area to put out a persistent fire) and unintentional (accidental, natural, catastrophic, etc.), but you don't even do that, so I can only assume you're only talking of unintentional floods, and thus can refer to the dictionary definition which doesn't need defining.

Thirdly, the micromanagement stinks to high heavens here. You REQUIRE flood-control things to be BUILT, but do NOT include the easiest solution: don't build infrastructure and homes in flood-prone areas. That should be like the starting point; when possible, don't build something easily damaged by floodwaters into an area with frequent flooding.

Now, as when specific measurements are used, you should take a step back and look at the reasons why flood control stuff is usually needed in RL. It's not just because people have built in flood-prone areas, but also because areas that would naturally slow water flow, have been built over or remodeled (river courses altered to be straighter, for shipping, wetlands paved over, forests cut down for farmland, etc.) to be more convenient. So why not encourage/require the use of NATURAL flood control options first, before going for the fully artificial ones?

And then, rather than go for a list like clause 4, just mandate that nations minimize flood property damage, evacuate people when necessary, and have plans for financing rebuilding as necessary. You can say it by using more words, but you really should leave it up to nations to decide if they go for stilt houses or building walls around rivers (levees, not levies) or something else entirely.

And lastly, don't forget that in many ecosystems floods are an absolute necessity for the good health of the ecosystem, and that if you prevent all floods, you destroy those ecosystems. (I also suggest looking up Egyptian history and how essential the floods of the Nile were for their agriculture.)

[Boston Castle]

OOC because in IC my ambassador would be very rude about this particular subject.

First of all, you need to answer the question "what is the problem I am trying to solve here?"

I honestly don't see what it is, here. You have basically listed differents kinds of floods and different kinds of waterway management plans, and then say apply the latter to the former. But why? What is the actual PROBLEM here? Do you really think that nations with floor-prone areas haven't in the most likely thousands of years that people have lived there, had any kind of inkling what to do with repeated flooding? That moden nations with flood-prone areas or, as is common, seasonal floods (monsoon, snowmelt, etc.) have taken no precautions whatsoever? Have no plans made despite already being required to, by an existing resolution?

So, what is the actual problem? That the nations aren't doing enough in your opinion?

Secondly, why the list of different kinds of floods? You don't use the different flood types differently, so why even bother? A "flood" is a common noun and easily understood, why does it need definition to begin with? The only reason I could understand was if you differentiated between intentional flooding (like when a new dam is built, the area upstream of it is usually flooded intentionally, and sometimes rarely water is allowed to flood an area to put out a persistent fire) and unintentional (accidental, natural, catastrophic, etc.), but you don't even do that, so I can only assume you're only talking of unintentional floods, and thus can refer to the dictionary definition which doesn't need defining.

Thirdly, the micromanagement stinks to high heavens here. You REQUIRE flood-control things to be BUILT, but do NOT include the easiest solution: don't build infrastructure and homes in flood-prone areas. That should be like the starting point; when possible, don't build something easily damaged by floodwaters into an area with frequent flooding.

Now, as when specific measurements are used, you should take a step back and look at the reasons why flood control stuff is usually needed in RL. It's not just because people have built in flood-prone areas, but also because areas that would naturally slow water flow, have been built over or remodeled (river courses altered to be straighter, for shipping, wetlands paved over, forests cut down for farmland, etc.) to be more convenient. So why not encourage/require the use of NATURAL flood control options first, before going for the fully artificial ones?

And then, rather than go for a list like clause 4, just mandate that nations minimize flood property damage, evacuate people when necessary, and have plans for financing rebuilding as necessary. You can say it by using more words, but you really should leave it up to nations to decide if they go for stilt houses or building walls around rivers (levees, not levies) or something else entirely.

And lastly, don't forget that in many ecosystems floods are an absolute necessity for the good health of the ecosystem, and that if you prevent all floods, you destroy those ecosystems. (I also suggest looking up Egyptian history and how essential the floods of the Nile were for their agriculture.)

Right. I'm going to address this point by point, yes OOC.

1. It's a very OOC reason, but it could be argued that if we weren't in some measure regulating OOC things then we wouldn't have a General Assembly would we, that there's still hundreds of billions of dollars every year which is susceptible to, and damaged by, floods. That's why. If we humans had actually learned our lessons, we wouldn't have to address the issue, right? Call it projection, but every item in the WA is, by extension then, projection.

2. The reason I mentioned multiple types of flooding is due to the different mechanics of floods. A storm surge flood and a river flood are much different. I live in a city right next to a river in the US, when we have flooding events, the triggering mechanism and how it plays out is different than it is for, say, a wind-driven storm surge through Lake Borgne into Lake Ponchatrain into Orleans Parish.

3. I agree with that critique of the proposed resolution, but that being said, that would best be addressed in further land-use regulation and not in a flood prevention resolution. (As for your point about stilt-houses and what not, see this.)

4. As for the reason of assuming man-made options over natural ones, I think, just as in RL, we can't assume that said things are feasible. I'll give you the example of the Mississippi River as a reason for why I would choose not to pursue the restorative measures here.

a. If we attempted to right nature and got rid of the Old River Control Structure in Louisiana/Mississippi, within a few years the Mississippi would have completely cut through Turnbull's Gap according to the Army Corps of Engineer. What would that mean? The Mississippi would change course to the Atchafalaya River and would inundate a large portion of southern Louisiana-nearly completely destroying Morgan City, Louisiana.

b. If we attempted to right nature and (see above), we would also functionally eliminate a large source of economic activity for Louisiana by turning the current River between Baton Rouge and New Orleans into nothing but a bayou.

Now...I don't know about you, but while I believe in keeping nature as wild as we can, that goal should not come at the complete exclusion of economic activity and encouraging those natural options, while great(! hence why 4(v) and 4(vi) exist in the first place! Though I'll probably re-word clause 4 to be a little less list-y and a little more proposal-y) are not always the best option or even the best.

5. Disaster preparedness, while addressed partially in GA 105, I don't believe it goes far enough in talking about precautionary measures for floods. It talks about inspecting dams and levees, but not building them! (See "II. II. Demands member states to regularly inspect structures such as dams, levees, nuclear facilities, and any other structures or vehicles which hold materials which, if the structure were to malfunction, could precipitate a disaster in the immediate area,"-only covers existing mitigation measures, it does not cover new construction.

6. I think that's an interesting element that I hadn't thought of, however, I don't exactly get how we can necessarily provide for "controlled floods" like those of the Nile.

Edit: clause 4 has been updated and a new clause 6 addressing your last concern has been added.

[Separatist Peoples]

"We fail to see how this is an international issue."

[Boston Castle]

"We fail to see how this is an international issue."

"Well, Ambassador, I would suggest that anything we here at the World Assembly can do to ameliorate international suffering should be something we should take up. We've taken up proposals to ameliorate suffering of the intellect by praising the study of the humanities, we've taken up proposals to protect physical suffering by working together on public health issues, and even taken up proposals to protect our precious environment. Sir, I'd posit that this proposal in proposing common-sense measures to a problem we, in our commonality, face every year absolutely covers an international issue-even if we never face it in quite the same way or at quite the same time."

[Separatist Peoples]

"We fail to see how this is an international issue."

"Well, Ambassador, I would suggest that anything we here at the World Assembly can do to ameliorate international suffering should be something we should take up. We've taken up proposals to ameliorate suffering of the intellect by praising the study of the humanities, we've taken up proposals to protect physical suffering by working together on public health issues, and even taken up proposals to protect our precious environment. Sir, I'd posit that this proposal in proposing common-sense measures to a problem we, in our commonality, face every year absolutely covers an international issue-even if we never face it in quite the same way or at quite the same time."

"No. Amelioration the suffering of people by praising the study of humanities is also not an international issue. Nobody in Nation A is affected by Nation B being a nation of engineers. Public health matters such as epidemics are absolutely transnational. Environmental concerns are also transnational. This is an issue nations can best address domestically on their own at their own priority."

[Boston Castle]

"Well, Ambassador, I would suggest that anything we here at the World Assembly can do to ameliorate international suffering should be something we should take up. We've taken up proposals to ameliorate suffering of the intellect by praising the study of the humanities, we've taken up proposals to protect physical suffering by working together on public health issues, and even taken up proposals to protect our precious environment. Sir, I'd posit that this proposal in proposing common-sense measures to a problem we, in our commonality, face every year absolutely covers an international issue-even if we never face it in quite the same way or at quite the same time."

"No. Amelioration the suffering of people by praising the study of humanities is also not an international issue. Nobody in Nation A is affected by Nation B being a nation of engineers. Public health matters such as epidemics are absolutely transnational. Environmental concerns are also transnational. This is an issue nations can best address domestically on their own at their own priority."

"And not all bodies of water are national issues, Ambassador. Need I remind you that rivers make up national boundaries and seas and oceans border many nations? Surely national policy can help drive some recovery, but uniform standards here would at least allow us to sleep easier at night when it comes to issues, I noted, we all faced."

"And perhaps more importantly to your initial statement why does GA #495 exist? I think one could argue, convincingly, in my opinion, that it's a much less pressing issue for us to consider?"

[Separatist Peoples]

"No. Amelioration the suffering of people by praising the study of humanities is also not an international issue. Nobody in Nation A is affected by Nation B being a nation of engineers. Public health matters such as epidemics are absolutely transnational. Environmental concerns are also transnational. This is an issue nations can best address domestically on their own at their own priority."

"And not all bodies of water are national issues, Ambassador. Need I remind you that rivers make up national boundaries and seas and oceans border many nations? Surely national policy can help drive some recovery, but uniform standards here would at least allow us to sleep easier at night when it comes to issues, I noted, we all faced."

"And perhaps more importantly to your initial statement why does GA #495 exist? I think one could argue, convincingly, in my opinion, that it's a much less pressing issue for us to consider?"

"It exists because the voters are easily manipulated. See also GAR#366 and GAR#365. To the extent that waterbodies cross borders, GAR#223 and GAR#105 are sufficient."

[Honeydewistania]

"Why so many long-winded definitions for flooding? They’re all the same thing - water displace water, water flood land."

[Separatist Peoples]

"Why so many long-winded definitions for flooding? They’re all the same thing - water displace water, water flood land."

"This would make Glog proud."

[Boston Castle]

"Why so many long-winded definitions for flooding? They’re all the same thing - water displace water, water flood land."

"Ambassador, please see my response to Arurakar."

"It exists because the voters are easily manipulated. See also GAR#366 and GAR#365. To the extent that waterbodies cross borders, GAR#223 and GAR#105 are sufficient."

"A perfectly reasonable expectation, Ambassador, but for as much as I sometimes miss the mark by cursory oversights, I would suggest you also follow the advice I gave to the Ambassador from Honeydewistania. The response to your complaint lies there."

[Honeydewistania]

"Why so many long-winded definitions for flooding? They’re all the same thing - water displace water, water flood land."

OOC: See my response to Ararukar, Honeydewistania.

"Ararukar? I’ve never heard of no bleeding Ararukar! Are you havin’ a laff!??!"

*Jonathan whispers into Ambassador Hepperle’s ear while massaging his feet*

"Oh... a typographical error. Anyways, nowhere in the resolution does it have different protocols for storm floods or river surges or whatever, and defining a word like flood like that could potentially exclude other unprecedented forms of floods, so I’d drop it if I were you."

[Separatist Peoples]

"Why so many long-winded definitions for flooding? They’re all the same thing - water displace water, water flood land."

"Ambassador, please see my response to Arurakar."

"It exists because the voters are easily manipulated. See also GAR#366 and GAR#365. To the extent that waterbodies cross borders, GAR#223 and GAR#105 are sufficient."

"A perfectly reasonable expectation, Ambassador, but for as much as I sometimes miss the mark by cursory oversights, I would suggest you also follow the advice I gave to the Ambassador from Honeydewistania. The response to your complaint lies there."

OOC: Your detailed response to Ara was OOC, so I didn't consider it canon.

There's nothing preventing members from creating their own precautionary land use regulations of this kind. Disaster preparedness is a broad category, but not so broad that it requires further preventative mandates. Especially when member states can make their own independent assessments of preventative necessity. This is unconvincing to me, the player. It is likely unconvincing to Bell the character.

[Araraukar]

OOC and IC as marked. I'm not answering your numbered replies since you've changed the draft quite a bit (you can drop the "rough" from the title, by the way).

Mandates member states conduct environmental impact studies of flooding prior to the planning or execution of any efforts at mitigation;

IC: "Impact studies of flooding? Are you talking about intentional "floods", like hydroelectric dams produce? Because "impact study" usually means the environmental impact that sapient activities are going to have, and floods being generally a natural phenomenon, impact studies don't fit the bill. I think you have your concepts crossed, here."

OOC: Same on the "mitigation" thing. "Flood" is an easily understood word, but mitigation of what? People's effect on flooding? Floods' effect on people? You're using words that have regular meanings, in ways that defy those regular meanings, here.

Requires nations to adopt plans to restore areas that might be benefitted by flooding or may serve as natural defenses against flooding;

OOC: This should be its own clause, not a subclause with the previous that it has nothing to do with. The current main clause is about academics, this is about actual actions.

IC: "How are plans adopted? Do you get them from another nation or what? And "areas that might be benefitted by" sounds like a translation error, when it should read "areas that might benefit from". And what do you mean by "restore"? To their natural state? By destroying all the infrastructure and sapient dwellings that you're so concerned about to think this whole thing is somehow needed? Because more places would benefit from being flooded, than would benefit from being asphalted over. This clause needs a lot more work."

Establish standards to be deemed “flooding” at points along aforementioned bodies of water, relative to the normal level of the body of water, which shall be the standard for when “flooding” is occurring;

IC: "Why? Most people with common sense understand that when non-aquatic plantlife has become aquatic, the place is flooded. If you think people are such idiots that they don't know a flood when they see one, then... Well, I don't think you can help someone that stupid no matter how many words you throw at them."

OOC: Also OOCly, why? A flood is a flood, what good is a measuring stick for? Not to mention, if you put the limit at "one kilometre of water depth", then it's never going to officially flood.

Identify flooding scenarios which occur most often and their impacts to life and property;

IC: "Why? Also, this should be lumped with the other academics from the start of the mandates."

Create action plans to protect life and property in low-lying areas that are susceptible to flooding;

OOC: These should already exist in compliant nations. Also, low-lying areas aren't only ones susceptible for flooding, unless we're talking very locally.

Establish emergency action plans to be triggered in the event that flooding is occurring at a point or forecast downstream if flooding is occurring at points upstream of critical infrastructure or centers of population;

IC: "This sentence looks like you took three unrelated sentences and frankensteined them together. The "at a point or forecast downstream" is disjointed and out of place and needs more sentence around it, and the rest (what comes before and after it) do not fit together either. Exactly WHEN are "emergency action plans", whatever those are - your previous clause just talks about action plans - supposed to be "triggered"? Also, triggering is not something that should be in law text, you should use something like "goes into effect" or "is enacted" or similar."

Formulate plans to protect critical infrastructure such as hospitals, power stations, and facilities which deal with drinking water or wastewater;

OOC: Why does this exist? The one about creating action plans already includes all of this and in fewer words.

Create infrastructure suitable to flee areas forecast to flood in the event flooding is forecast or a flood is occurring;

IC: "Seriously, who types in your drafts from your notes? You should fire them. Infrastructure doesn't flee, it's by its very nature built in place. People can flee, but in law text you should be talking about evacuating. And "forecast to flood flooding is forecast or occurring" - pick one, you don't need to say the same thing three times. All in all, this doesn't make sense. Exactly what kind of infrastructure did you want created?"

OOC: Do you have trouble using English? Google Translate does not give good translations from other languages, so if you're using that, it garbles your message in this way quite often.

Requires member states to invest in flood-control infrastructure

OOC: This doesn't really need any subclauses, though you might want to expand it to include also flood-prevention, not just control. Control is what you do when you've let the situation get to emergency levels in the first place, prevention is what you do to not need to do controlling.

Natural floodwater breaks such as wetlands,

IC: "Wetlands are not infrastructure, they are ecosystems."

Man-made structures such as levees, river control structures, secondary channels, and bays;

OOC: Like already said, micromanagery lists are bad. And this is missing sooooo many things it's sad and ironic. You don't need such lists. Let nations sort out such details. A general doesn't need to order the underpant colour for each separate soldier to be able to tell his men to go take that hill back from the enemy.

Cooperate with provincial and local authorities, if they exist, to formulate plans for flood response;

OOC: What is "flood response" that isn't already done by the previous mandates? And if you're telling nations to do X, you don't THEN need to tell nations to do X with the subunits that form up the nation. National governments are perfectly capable of delegation on their own, that's why they are national governments.

Invest in training and equipment for emergency response services to deal with life-threatening situations involving flooding;

OOC: Micromanagement that nations are more than capable of dealing with. And also "involving flooding" is either only drownings and hypothermia, or everything that ever possibly existed or could exist in flooded areas, up to and including bank robberies.

Identify least-likely scenarios for flooding and their impacts and craft plans to ameliorate the impacts for those scenarios.

OOC: ...why? And what does "amerliorate the impacts" mean? Same as before, with the impact studies, not the right word to use.

Clarifies that nations may engage in controlled flooding of a body of water provided that they assume the costs inherent in attempting said controlled flooding.

OOC: "Assume the costs" doesn't look right. And usually controlled flooding is done to reduce the costs caused by whatever is the problem that the flooding is the solution to, but sometimes it's also done to help revive wetlands or similar ecological reasons.

[Boston Castle]

Putting this on hold for a bit, have other ideas, though I do intend to work on this again at a later date.