In western countries, rivers prone to droughts are often carefully managed. Defenses such as levees, bunds, reservoirs, and weirs are used to prevent rivers from bursting their banks. Coastal flooding has been addressed in Europe with coastal defenses, such as sea walls and beach nourishment.

• London. London is protected from flooding by a huge mechanical barrier across the River Thames, which is raised when the water level reaches a certain point.
  
  
• Venice. Venice has a similar arrangement to London, although it is already unable to cope with very high tides, and will become increasingly inadequate if anticipated rises in sea level occur.
  
  
• Netherlands. The biggest and most elaborate flood defenses can be found in the Netherlands, where they are referred to as Delta Works with the Oosterscheldedam as its crowning achievement. These works were built in response to the North Sea flood of 1953 of the south western part of the Netherlands. The Dutch had already built one of world's largest dams in the north of their country: the Afsluitdijk (closing occurred in 1932).
  
  
• Russia. Currently the Saint Petersburg Flood Prevention Facility Complex is to be finished by 2008, in Russia, to protect Saint Petersburg from storm surges. It also has a main traffic function, as it completes a ring road around St Petersburg. Eleven dams extend for 25.4 kilometers and stand eight meters above water level.