Next to storms, floods are the most frequent cause for damage from natural disasters. About one third of all economic damage is due to floods! In Austria, the flood events of 2005 basically had local or small-scale impacts. They were primarily caused by snowmelt in March and by particularly heavy thundershowers – in May and June in wide parts of Salzburg, Lower and Upper Austria, and recently in mid-July in Oberpinzgau (Province Salzburg).
Especially affected was Mittersill, where no adequate protection measures had been taken. Damage was mainly caused by flooded cellars and amounted throughout the country to about € 20 million.
Wolfgang Stalzer, the "water boss" of the Life Ministry (BMLFUW) stressed that related to the entire national territory, precipitation (until the end of May) corresponded to the mean value of many years.
Naturally, regional conditions differed considerably. A first assessment of the monthly precipitation volume showed deficits in the West and South of the country and higher snowmelt amounts mainly in Lower Austria and Vienna.
Since floods could not be prevented, protection from the impacts was imperative as was the optimal preparation for possible crises. Stalzer: "Austria invests annually € 108 million in torrent regulation and avalanche protection structures, and e 75 million in flood protection projects. Further protection projects are necessary and public risk awareness has to be increased to be able to considerably reduce the damage potential in the future.
The department ‘Protection from natural hazards’, established after the disastrous floods in 2002, proves how seriously the Life Ministry is pursuing the issue of natural hazards. The core strategies for future flood control are being developed in a cooperation between the Bundeswasser- bauverwaltung/BWV (Federal Hydroengineering Administration) and the Wildbach- und Lawinenverbauung/WLF (Office for Flood and Avalanche Control)."
Basing on the results of the project FloodRisk, which analyses the flood disaster of 2002, the following core items of a now "integrated flood management" were developed:
- the identification of the limits of protection and the responsibility of those involved,
- the promotion of knowledge about hazards and risk awareness,
- the safeguarding of appropriated use by spatial planning,
- the promotion of incentive systems for private provision,
- the coordination of all public planning,
- the taking of protective measures where necessary and
- the safeguarding of financial provision.
Integrated flood management aims to achieve an as high level of flood protection as possible by a cooperation of all involved in different phases of the risk cycle. A particularly prominent interface between BWV and WLV are the "danger zone plans" of river engineering, which are presently being developed. They are a collection of specific data on the regions threatened by floods, mudflows, and landslides as well as of those areas which have to be kept clear for protec- tion measures or which require a special kind of management. The danger zone plans serve as a basis for emergency plans and for planning and projecting technological and ecological protection measures.
A so-called "Action plan flood protection – development of waters 2015" will primarily contain the enlarged medium-term implementation programme plus a pertinent priority list for flood control management. For several years, the funds necessary for this purpose have exclusively come from the Disaster Fund. Experiences have shown that in spite of the technological and ecological measures already taken, requirements are much higher.
Thus, new flood protection measures are presently being implemented for the rivers Leitha and Traisen (Lower Austria), for the Stooberbach (Burgenland), for the Großarlerache (Salzburg), for the Lech (Tyrol), Lake Constance (Vorarlberg), and for many other rivers and brooks. The central constituent of an integrated flood management, however, has always been the extensive information of the population!
(Source: aqua press Int. 3/2005)
