Regarding the increase of extreme flood events and flood damage during the last decades, it has become obvious that an integrated approach is crucial in flood protection. In the complex field of integrated flood management many issues, e.g. technical measures, spatial management, retrofitting, raising risk awareness as well as environmental and land use management, have to be incorporated. Water related biotopes and especially flood plains are extremely important and rich ecosystems with a huge variety of species and functionalities. So technologies for integrated flood management should have the possibilities to integrate water and environmental aspects. Availability of digital data is crucial to manage these systems with complex cause-and-effect relationships. Moreover, the interfacing of different models plays a central role. But simulation of natural systems alone is not sufficient, public participation is also essential. For transparent and knowledge-based decisions the possibilities of participation technologies such as Decision Support Systems (DSS) are important and can be very helpful. But for large-scale and complex catchment based systems, there is a series of requirements, such as for example a good database, administrative boundaries, data availability/access, standards of methodologies, communication (e.g. between water and environmental managers) exist. Development of a DSS is usually time and money-consuming. So it is crucial to identify strategies and synergies to minimize costs and optimize the benefit. This paper illustrates some aspects of an incorporated approach in water and environmental technologies and discusses possible improvements and synergies in the field such as data collection and access, cooperation between water and environmental management, and integrated planning on a catchment scale.