17 May 2006 - Vienna, Austria
– With more severe and frequent floods hitting
Europe each year, the continent’s rivers and floodplains
need to be better managed with less emphasis on
new, large-scale infrastructure projects, says
WWF in the lead-up to a European Union conference
on flood risk management.
In the last six years, 123 severe
floods have hit Europe — from Germany to Italy,
from France to Romania — affecting a total area
larger than the EU itself. More than 500,000 people
have lost their homes and damage caused by floods
has been estimated at €25 billion.
“Flooding this spring in Austria,
the Czech Republic, Serbia and Montenegro, and
Romania has shown once again the importance of
an integrated approach for rivers and floodplains
that brings together river flows, land management
and human activities in a sustainable way,” said
Sergey Moroz, a freshwater policy officer at WWF’s
European Policy Office.
According to WWF, integrated
river management should be the guiding principle
of a proposed EU directive on floods risk management,
which will be voted on in June by the European
Parliament and by the European Council under the
Austrian Presidency.
WWF is urging EU member states
to further strengthen the current proposal for
the flood risk management directive; a directive
that aims to establish a framework for the reduction
of risk to human health, the environment and economic
activity associated with floods in Europe. What
is missing, however, are provisions for and enforcement
of integration of the planning processes required
under this directive, as well as the EU Water
Framework Directive.
The Water Framework Directive
is the most substantial piece of European Commission
water legislation to date. The purpose of the
Directive is to establish a framework for the
protection of inland surface waters (rivers and
lakes), transitional waters (estuaries), coastal
waters and groundwater through joint management.
“After decades of building dykes
and damaging natural floodplain areas, flood prevention
policies need to change direction and put at their
heart good management and use of flood areas,”
Moroz added.
Restoration projects across
Europe show that it is possible to restore the
existing potential of floodplains in a cost-effective
way. Already, 6,500ha of floodplains have been
restored along the Loire River in France, and
WWF, together with the German Ministry of Environment
and the Land of Sachsen-Anhalt, has launched a
restoration initiative for 5,700ha of floodplain
area along the Elbe River in Germany. In the Tisza
Basin (Hungary, Ukraine, Romania) 70,000ha of
floodplains are to be restored by 2020, with 4,000ha
by the ned of this year.
In 2000, Romania, Bulgaria,
Moldova and Ukraine committed to restore 220,000ha
in the lower Danube Delta, but so far only a small
percentage of this area has been restored.
"With only 20 per cent
of Europe’s natural floodplains still functioning
and climate change contributing to more extreme
weather events, bold decisions and actions are
needed urgently," said Moroz.
