The Explanatory Memorandum of the proposal presented on 18 January 2006 reads: “In addition to economic and social damage, floods can have severe environmental consequences, for example when waste water treatment plants or factories holding large quantities of toxic chemicals are inundated.”

According to the proposal, the new law shall help to “reduce and manage flood-related risks to human health, the environment, infrastructure and property”. It also states that the WFD “does not take into account future (flood) risks caused by climate change”. The main objectives of the EU Flood Directive therefore are the completion of flood risk maps by 22 Dec. 2013 at the latest and the presentation of flood risk management plans focusing on prevention.

The Explanatory Memorandum (and Article 14) of the directive proposal also suggests that private parties shall be involved in the planning process and draw benefit from synergies. The public participation shall be coordinated with the participation requirement laid down in the WFD (Article 14).

Prevention is cheaper than liability

Two initiatives launched in Austria this summer demonstrate that public participation not only bears the risk of a partial transfer of responsibility by the authorities; it may above all prepare the ground for entirely new approaches and create new links. The environmental organisation WWF, for example, has won the Austrian Economic Chamber (WKO) as a logical partner in promoting the practical implementation of an integrated flood protection solution, for the purpose of which a programme comprising seven areas has meanwhile been established.

According to statistical figures presented by the Austrian Insurance Association (VVO), the costs of the 2002 flood disaster alone amounted to € 400 million (total economic damage: € 3.2 billion); compensation payments in 2005 came to € 110 million (total economic damage: € 700 million).

Reinhold Mitterlehner, Deputy Secretary General of WKO, views this as a sound argument for joining forces with the environmentalists: “Preventive measures and protection facilities are usually cheaper than aftercare measures such as compensation payments to make up for the damage caused. What is more, prevention also creates safer conditions for companies launching new business activities and setting up new sites.”

WKO and WWF agree that future flood protection programmes will have to comprise a perfect combination of necessary technical protection measures and passive ecological measures such as the widening of riverbeds or the creation of retention areas. The first planning survey presented by WWF Austria (“Jeder Hektar zählt”) estimates that a sum of € 1 billion would be needed to create 11,000 hectares of potential retention zones along the 24 major domestic rivers.

“€ 670 million of this amount would go into building and planning, with additional benefits such as securing jobs,” says Mitterlehner. The federal government, by comparison, plans to allocate a sum of € 2.13 billion to flood protection (not including the Danube) throughout the 2007 – 2016 period. With a view to tackling the forthcoming EU requirements, WKO experts demand that a Flood Protection Master Plan (in analogy to the Traffic Master Plan) be developed.

They criticise the existing lack of national flood protection guidelines and the poor availability of data. More information on the Internet: www.wwf.at/wasser or www.wko.at/wasser The recent installation of the first internet/intranet risk zoning system in Austria underscores the importance of involving private parties in natural disaster protection.

This public-private partnership (PPP) between the Ministry of Life (BMLFUW) and the Austrian Insurance Association (VVO) was launched in the wake of the 2002 flood disaster. The first project phase, the Austrian flood risk zoning system HORA, has now been accessible on the Web since 1st June (together with the third project phase on earthquake risk zoning).

In accordance with a risk partnership concluded between federal government, insurance companies and private parties, the project initiators seek to offer the public a preliminary risk assessment tool for evaluation of their home, industrial enterprise, or infrastructure.

Digital risk maps shall provide information on 30-year, 100-year and 200-year flood events as they occur alongside the 26,000-km-long domestic river network. Further details can be obtained from the risk zone plans administered by the local authorities and/or the water management databases kept by the District Councils.

Flood prevention more enticing than sex

Heinz Stiefelmeyer, Head of BMLFUW’s Protective Water Management Division, and Thomas Hlatky, who heads the Property Insurance Section at Grazer Wechselseitige and in this function is also member of the Industrial Insurance Section at VVO, are simply overwhelmed that their homepage has meanwhile attracted clearly more than 12 million (!) visitors.

“If we had set up a sex homepage, then perhaps we would have expected such enormous feedback, and we would have earned much money into the bargain,” says Hlatky, eyes twinkling. “VVO has certainly invested a lot in the start-up of HORA with its focus on strengthening public risk awareness, prevention and self-precaution. On the other hand, Austrian insurance companies expect that this project will be a great help in making future risks insurable – and we are talking here of full risk coverage. After all, risk assessment clearly plays a crucial role in property insurance!”

The insurance expert also concedes that the BMLFUW’s contribution to the PPP through its Vienna-based Land-, forst- und wasserwirtschaftliches Rechenzentrum GmbH (LFRZ) has been just as significant. Contributions include (also economically) valuable GIS data on landscape formations and river courses, or meanwhile digitally recorded historic water level data dating back up to 150 years.

The probability with which a certain block of land is immersed in water during a flood event can be calculated by means of hydraulic engineering methods. “These have traditionally relied on statistical figures, which are known to be very inaccurate, especially when major events such as flooding are concerned,” explains Günter Blöschl from the Vienna University of Technology (TU Wien).

He and his colleagues from the Institute of Hydraulic and Water Resources Engineering have dedicated many years to developing more accurate, process-oriented risk assessment techniques. The starting point was to identify different flood-triggering processes and to divide them into specific categories (source: doctoral thesis, Merz):

• long-duration rainfalls
• short-duration rainfalls
• storms
• rain following snow
• snow melting.

Then the data were matched with further specific information (geology, precipitation, hydraulic engineering, etc.) to also take account of the processes triggering floods. By means of mathematical regionalisation models these data were finally transferred to ungauged stretches of watercourse so as to produce the runoff data for 30-, 100- and 200-year events.

Runoff data was converted into water levels and flooding zones at the Institute for Applied Water Resources Management and Geoinformatics (IAWG) based in Ottobrunn near Munich.

IAWG is the only scientific institution in Europe where such a complex task had already been successfully tackled before and which also has adequate computing capacities (editorial note: see box for details). LFRZ GmbH is responsible for the IT development and administration of the eHORA Webgis homepage.

Project manager Wolfgang Tinkl underscores that HORA is so user-friendly because the data is backed up by aerial photographs. “The Internet version can zoom to a scale of 1:5,000, the Intranet version even to 1:700,” says the IT expert. A conventional web browser is all that is needed to use this Geographic Information System. LFRZ experts have also conducted special assessments. For instance, they have linked 1,200,000 geo-referenced addresses with the respective HORA zones through alphanumeric codes, which allows them to evaluate any potential damage.

According to project manager Heinz Stiefelmeyer (BMLFUW), HORA has already largely anticipated the public participation requirement envisaged in the proposal for a EU Flood Directive and prepared the ground for the above mentioned “risk partnership”. But there are further areas of natural disaster protection that need to be addressed.

“The HORA partners are currently establishing a common platform on which all risk zone data of the Federal Water Engineering Administration shall be compiled. Another task is to identify hail risk zones. The integration of risk zone plans for controlling the destructive forces of mountain torrents and avalanches is also under debate.

But already from a current point of view, one can say that HORA is a unique risk platform by European standards as it provides extremely detailed information and can be accessed by anyone! Another accomplishment is the impressive HORA Public-Private Partnership Contract, which was just recently translated into English by the EU Commission,” Stiefelmeyer concludes.

A recently completed survey, which was conducted by Franz Sinabell from WIFO on behalf of VVO, looks into who should bear natural disaster risks and investigates viable options for Austria. Its outcome will undoubtedly fuel the debate on natural disaster protection, as can be concluded from a VVO press release of 27th June saying: “The state can withdraw from its responsibility as original insurer against natural disasters if a large enough group of people takes out an insurance against such risks, either by way of compulsory insurance (…) or by way of convention such as in England (…).”
(Source: aqua press Int. 2/2006, Mag. Christof Hahn)