Troubled waters

By Neil Davey

When the Danube River burst its banks in April this year it marked the third time since 2000 that local towns and cities were to suffer its floods. Summer 2002 had witnessed particularly catastrophic flooding along the Danube and severe floods last year compounded the area’s misery. This year, however, has seen some of the highest floodwaters ever recorded in areas such as the lower Tiza and the lower Danube River region.

It is a similar story for many locations on the banks of Europe’s rivers. The past decade has seen the continent suffer over 100 major floods and the toll has been devastating: at least €25 billion in insured economic losses; the displacement of around half a million citizens; and over 700 lives. But the potential for future catastrophes is even more immense. There are 10 million people living in areas at risk of flooding along the Rhine alone, accompanies by assets estimated to be worth some €165 billion.

While those Europeans living alongside rivers such as the Rhine or the Elbe are becoming increasingly used to living with the misery of flooding, it has arguably been those living close to the Danube River that have suffered the most in recent years. Europe's second longest river, the Danube stretches over ten countries – more than any other international river. As such, this year’s flooding saw thousands of families evacuated from their homes in those countries worst hit: Romania, Bulgaria and Serbia and Montenegro.

There have also been huge economic losses. In addition to the cost of the clean-up, farmers have been hit hard, with tens of thousands of hectares of wheat and maize farmland submerged in Romania alone. Elsewhere, production ground to a halt at m any local factories and historic city centres such as Prague and Budapest were left counting the cost to their tourism industries. Estimates of the economic losses resulting from the 2005 floods in Bavaria put the figure at around €175 million, whilst in Austria it was said to be double that. The economic losses of this year have yet to be calculated but they are expected to be significant, particularly for the lower Danube countries.

The Danube’s role as Europe’s second-busiest inland shipping corridor was also compromised by the flooding, restricting this important route for moving bulk goods in a region where road and rail connections can be crowded or aging. “At certain points, shipping was closed along the whole river – although not at the same time – and that had an economic impact because it carries around 40 million tons of traffic a year, which even then is only ten percent or less of its capacity,” says Edgar Martin, Director of transport and navigation consultants Danube Research.

“It is different from the Rhine and other rivers in western Europe because the Danube primarily carries bulk products, rather than high-value, so it has implications for factories and heavy industry. Many ports were also flooded and so there is also the economic impact due to the ports not operating alongside the cost of the damage caused by the floodwaters and the basic clean-up costs. In addition, if a factory is using the barges as floating warehouses they might not have a great supply of iron ore or coal or whatever they are using or processing and they might even run out.”

Flood protection

As if the situation isn’t grave enough, there are a series of factors that indicate that the coming decades could witness higher flood risks in Europe and even greater economic damage. “Year by year, sedimentation fills artificial stretches [of the river] and lifts the level of flood,” highlights Hungarian environmental economist Gabor Ungvari, who has aided with a project for the River Tisza. “The upper catchments’ water retention ability is decreasing step by step. And the climate change forecasts predict the further concentration of precipitation during winter periods. All of these elements point towards the increasing possibility of floods.”

Furthermore, the rising number of people living in areas at risk of flooding and the number of businesses and industry located in flood risk zones continues to grow, which will only serve to exacerbate the damage and danger if flooding does become more frequent. For these reasons, the matter of addressing flooding has never been more pressing in Europe.

Certainly it is clearly the case that it is vital for the large cities to be equipped with some form of flood protection scheme. In most cities there are mobile protection works that can be installed when high waters come as well as more permanent infrastructures, such as dykes that protect cities from potential damage. Larger cities, such as Budapest, also have a number of roads running along the Danube that can be automatically closed, allowing the water to go up onto these areas to adapt to floods.

Elsewhere, the city of Vienna has developed a scheme where a second part of the main flowing Danube is kept at a level where it can take on additional water and only in those periods of flood is that channel used to the full extent. The water is thereby allowed to flow past the city without causing damage and it was on the basis of this that Vienna was protected in 2002.

Nevertheless, whilst independent action at the national level has had some degree of success for countries impacted by the Danube, it is increasingly acknowledged that coordinated action is far more effective in improving the overall level of protection. Following the disastrous Danube floods of 2002, Danube countries agreed to strengthen their flood prevention and reduction efforts through the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR).

ICPDR

Created in 1998, the Vienna-based ICPDR brings together 13 countries in the river basin to promote policy agreements and the setting of joint priorities and strategies for the Danube and its tributaries. An ‘Action Programme for Sustainable Flood Protection’ developed by the ICPDR”s Expert Group on Flood Protection, was adopted by the Danube countries in 2004 to manage the risk of floods to protect human life and property. Key elements of the Action Programme include the mapping of high flood risk areas and ending construction in natural floodplain areas.

“The Danube Flood Action Programme has been developed to emphasise the necessity of coordinated actions amongst all the countries of the Danube Basin and it sets out specific activities that each country needs to undertake,” explains Philip Weller, Executive Secretary at the ICPDR. “The work required is going to take a number of years and localised mapping and hazard definition activities are under way. Each country needs to undertake flood risk mapping to identify areas where flood waters would potentially go and to ensure that there is perhaps less human activity in those areas.”

This certainly reflects the changing attitude to flooding, where there has been a shift from taking merely structural measures, such as the building of dykes, towards behaviour that supports co-existing with floods with the minimum of disturbance and economic damage.

“There has been a change in mindset in the recognition that building of defence mechanisms alone against floodwaters is not sufficient,” acknowledges Weller. “It has become clear that there is a need to find ways to live with floods and this has been the philosophy that has been adopted in the Danube river basin. This means giving more space for the rivers, allowing the floodplains to be what they are, which is places where waters spill out on to when the water in the upstream areas increases. And these kinds of strategies have to be utilised in combination with those protection measures that protect the cities and public infrastructure.”

In addition, it is necessary to stop building in flood plains or hazard zones when there is a risk that they could be flooded, and this also entails giving land back to the river where farmland has built on wetlands. “The Romanian authorities have flooded a lot of land on purpose to try and stop the flooding being too serious and to a certain extent it has worked,’ highlights Martin. “In the Communist days, under the Ceausescu dictatorship in Romania, a lot of the wetlands adjacent to the river were turned into farmland. But they are now going to convert all of some of that back to wetland, to let the river have a more natural course.”

Flood warning system

Another key element of the Action Programme is the development of an international flood warning system. At present, the flood alert system is organised on a national basis, with bilateral agreements providing a way of warning neighbours downstream. But now a new Danube-wide flood alert system is about to be introduced. “The flood alert system will allow additional warning on where floods may develop based on meteorological and soil conditions and should give extra time to prepare and organise defences,” says Weller. “2006 is the first stage of this and then by the end of next year we hope that the complete Danube system will exist to provide warning.”

The flood warning system, overseen by the ICPDR, will supplement national systems and give up to 10 days' warning of expected floods. Cooperating in development of the system is the European Union Joint Research Centre, and it is not the only initiative hailing from the EU that will hopefully benefit the Danube River region with its tackling of floods. Of particular note is a new Flood Directive that the EU is in the midst of discussing. Originally proposed at the beginning of the year by the European Commission, the Directive on the assessment and management of floods is designed to reduce and manage the risks that floods pose to human health, the environment, infrastructure and property.

Under the proposed Directive member states would first need to carry out a preliminary assessment to identify the river basins and associated coastal areas at risk of flooding. For such zones they would then need to draw up flood risk maps and then flood risk management plans focused on prevention, protection and preparedness. “The EU Flood Directive is a very positive initiative,” Weller adds. “It would introduce minimum standards for flood risk mapping, make that information available to the public such that they can see where their house is in relation to the potential flood threats, and also establish a variety of other mechanisms in the legislation that the countries in the EU then would have to adhere to.”

Elsewhere, there have been more specific campaigns related to improving the waterways for shipping on the Danube River. “Until now the priority with the waterways in Europe has been river information services which is a high-tech navigation system for inland waterways,” highlights Martin. “This is good, but in parts of Central and Eastern Europe the waterways are in very bad condition and really the basic infrastructure – the fairway itself, the navigation channel, the ports and even the ships – should be the priority. The EC has now recognised this in a number of studies including 2004’s Prospects for Inland Navigation in the Enlarged Europe, and it even prices approximately how much investment is needed.”

The EU is now funding masterplan studies in Serbia and Romania with a further study planned for Hungary in the future. “There is a strong argument that a lot more money is needed, but finally the EU has started to invest in the Danube,” adds Martin.

Learning curve

Nevertheless, despite the ongoing efforts of the EU and bodies such as the ICPDR, Ungvari believes that the Danube River region still has much work to do. The improvement of water retention in catchment areas is a particular priority, he suggests, as the real threat in countries such as Hungary is the loss of water and the growing likelihood of drought. “As our country is losing her water assets, the focus of water management should be on the retention of floods, but this is not the case yet,” Ungvari suggests. “The natural water retention capacities of the middle and upper flow water-basin areas must be increased. It doesn't mean dams, rather forests and the reintroduction of mosaic-like landscapes with less intensive agricultural methods and less efficient drainage facilities.”

He continues: “A network of more or less natural water reservoirs should be built to retain water. New agricultural land management and nature conservation projects could raise biodiversity and living standards along our rivers but decision makers fail to channel resources for this type of developments. It is clear that the spatial results of hundreds-year-long processes cannot be eliminated in a matter of years, but the strategy of adaptation must be set. The later the process starts, the higher the cost will be. In the long run there is no other way than finding methods of co-existence with water all over the areas that were once flood plains.”

Nonetheless, laudable progress is being made at the Danube River, indeed enough so that many are optimistic that just as the Danube River region has been able to benefit from the experiences of other river floods, river-based regions across Europe may be able to glean valuable lessons from the Danube. But Weller also agrees that the greatest lesson that has been learnt is indeed the need for co-existence with flooding.

“We have all learnt from one another,” he concludes. “Elbe’s experience in 2002 for example taught us that there is a necessity of proper storage and handling of hazardous substances or materials to ensure that they do not get into water during flood events. From each flood we have learned something. But the general trend is to have a better understanding of what happens during floods, and also to recognise that we have to live with floods and to define strategies that are minimising the damage and disruption to people’s lives as well as allowing sufficient space for rivers.”

Major flooding has occurred somewhere in Europe nearly every year over the past decade. The most prominent floods were:

• Rhine (December 1993 and January 1995)
• Odra (July 1997)
• England/Wales and Central Europe (October 1998)
• Danube (May 1999)
• England/Wales and Switzerland/Northern Italy (Autumn 2000)
• Wisla (July 2001)
• Elbe and Danube (August 2002)
• Southern France (September 2002)
• Danube (August 2005)
• Danube (April 2006)

2002 floods

August 2002 saw Central Europe stricken by one of the worst flood catastrophes since the Middle Ages. Dresden and the surrounding state of Saxonia were particularly badly hit, with estimates putting the damage at some €6 billion. This included the destruction of around 200 houses and damage to 700 km of railway tracks, 800 km of roads and 585 bridges. Overall, more than 100,000 people had to be evacuated to safety, 100 people were injured and 20 lost their lives. 2002 marked the culmination of four years of heavy flooding in Europe, which amounted to €11 billion of economic losses in Germany and France and €6 billion in the UK and Spain, plus significant casualties in both Italy and Spain.