The Danube near Vienna (August 2002).

Last summer will be remembered as „the summer of the millennium“ for the bad news that it brought to Europe: half of the European landscape sank into water and mud in the summer of 2002. Many people lost the property they had worked for all their life. To prevent a similar catastrophe from happening in the future, it is high time efficient flood protection measures were put in place.
As to the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR), it has included flood prevention into its five-year Joint Action Programme 2001-2005 which stresses the importance of creating a flood prevention programme adapted to the specific situation in the Danube River Basin with particular attention to the tributaries and sub-river-basins. The results should be available by the year 2005.
The 1st expert meeting of the ICPDR on flood protection was held in Budapest in September 2001, i.e. approximately a year before the superflood occurred. The participating experts agreed on the need to develop an action programme for sustainable flood prevention in the Danube River Basin. They agreed that the programme should follow the UN-ECE Guidelines on Sustainable Flood Prevention and that it should also take into consideration – as a model - the Action Plan on Flood Defence of the Rhine Commission.
In response to this proposal and bearing in mind the great diversity of the hydrological conditions in the Danube River Basin, the Danube countries are currently developing action programmes for sustainable flood prevention for the sub-basins and/or for selected parts of the Danube River itself.
The Danube countries are also preparing reports on their flood protection activities and existing bilateral and/or sub-basin-wide cooperation for flood prevention and forecasting, which should be available in October 2002. The reports will immediately be thoroughly analysed and the ICPDR will at its forthcoming Plenary Session in November 2002 decide on specific actions to minimize future risks from floods .
One of the problems highlighted by the recent floods concerns the inundation of landfills, dump sites and storage facilities where harmful substances are deposited. The possibility of toxic substances being transported into the water poses a clear threat to the environment as was shown in August 2002 when the Elbe flooded Spolana chemical plant in Neratovice, the Czech Republic. Such potential threats were recognised by the ICPDR in the past and already in spring 2002 the Danube countries agreed to create an inventory of old contaminated sites in potentially flooded areas in the Danube River Basin.

 

Preventing floods by restoring nature

 

Fleeing the flood in Germany

In Kärnten, Austria, the Drava River has been freed from its "concrete bodice" and flood areas have been established that are not only new habitats for endangered plants and animals but also a sign of a reversed trend in flood protection policy; the Drava River is a test case for the new "back to nature" approach. The river got back its freedom and is only regulated in those areas where settlements are likely to be overflowed. EU scientists are conducting a long-term study to determine whether the high investment cost associated with the Drava River Project is justified. If it proves to be justified, the „back to nature" approach will be applied to bigger rivers such as the Rhine or the Elbe.

 

Countries most affected by the flood

 

Lower and Upper Austria as well as Salzburg took the brunt of the inundation. More than 10.000 houses were damaged. The infrastructure in these regions was destroyed, with the cost of infrastructure rehabilitation estimated at EUR 232 million. The total damage has been roughly estimated at between EUR 5 – 7.5 billion, with private and state-owned property accounting for about 60% and 40% of that amount respectively.
In the Morava River Basin in the Czech Republic, about 20 communities were affected by inundation. The major damage inflicted on urban settlements, infrastructure and agriculture has been estimated at EUR 11.7 million, with municipal and private property representing EUR 7 million and EUR 4.7 million respectively.
In Slovakia, the areas most affected by inundation involved central Slovakia and the area around Bratislava. 144 settlements and 8,678 hectares of the land were flooded. The damage is estimated at EUR 36.2 million and the cost of the emergency interventions amounted to EUR 2.2 million.

Impression from Upper Austria in August 2002.

In the inundation area around the Danube elbow near Visegrad, in Hungary, several municipalities were affected. About 2,000 people had to be evacuated. 4,370 houses were damaged. However, due to flood prevention structures and emergency interventions, major damages could be prevented. The overall cost of the emergency operation was EUR 33 million and the estimated cost of rehabilitation of flood defence structures is EUR 10.2 million.
Flash floods in the Suceava region in northern Romania caused 11 casualties; 1,624 houses were flooded and more than 1,000 kilometers of roads and 567 bridges were destroyed. Serious damage was inflicted on gas, electric and communication networks. The damage has not yet been estimated.
The inundation in Bavaria affected the Danube from Regensburg to Passau and many tributaries including the Inn, the Traun, the Salzach and the Regen. Thanks to the flow regulation structures in place, the negative impact of flood was substantially reduced. The utilization of reservoirs at Dillingen and Ingolstadt helped to decrease the flood wave remarkably. The overall estimation of damage on flood protection structures is EUR 0.5 million, of which EUR 7.3 million will be covered from the state budget the rest will be provided by the municipalities. The extent of the damage on infrastructure and private property is still being estimated.