27 Jun
2006 - Vienna/Brussels – Today, the Environment
Ministers of the European Union Member States
should reach political agreement on a draft directive
on the assessment and management of flood risks
at their meeting in Luxembourg. WWF is calling
on the governments of the European Union Member
States as well as governments of accession countries
(Bulgaria and Romania) to restore floodplain areas
as a complementary form of flood risk management,
in addition to traditional flood management measures,
which are still necessary to protect human settlements.
According to a new WWF study
on the recent Lower Danube floods in spring 2006,
the flood level would have been lowered by 0.3-0.5
meters if certain floodplain areas had been restored.
Four case studies in Romania show that restoring
approximately 98,000 ha of floodplain areas would
increase flood retention capacity to 1.6 billion
m3, eight times more than the current potential.
The 100-year flood event on
the lower Danube this spring caused suffering
and even loss of life: 10 people were killed and
ca. 30.000 people displaced; damage was estimated
at more than half a billion Euro. In Romania alone,
agricultural polders, which provide livelihoods
for local people, were heavily impacted during
the floods: an area of 70.000 ha was flooded affecting
10.000 people.
Flood peaks reached very high
levels due to the reduced discharge capacities
of the floodplains. Restoring floodplain areas
along the middle and lower stretches of the Danube
River will yield multiple benefits not only in
terms of enhanced flood protection, but also for
local livelihoods. Restored floodplains in the
four Romanian case studies alone would generate
more than 3.5 million Euro per year in terms of
economic and ecological benefits. The so-called
“Lower Danube Green Corridor” is an initiative
that aims to protect and restore precisely such
areas in Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania and Ukraine,
who all signed the agreement in 2000.
“Restoration and preservation
of floodplains must be a key component of the
EU flood risk management directive. For Bulgaria
and Romania this is a unique opportunity to implement
state-of-the-art ecologically-sustainable flood
mitigation measures and illustrate their effectiveness
and added-value,” says Dr. Christine Bratrich,
Freshwater Team Leader for the WWF International
Danube-Carpathian Programme. “Governments and
decision makers have to work with nature, not
against it. The governments of the two acceding
countries have a real opportunity to set a landmark
in environmentally sound flood protection,” says
Bratrich.
Notes to editors:
• A study published by WWF called “2006 Floods
in the Danube River Basin” is a working paper
on the potential of floodplain protection and
restoration to support flood risk mitigation for
people living along the Danube and its major tributaries.
The study’s aim is to review the recent 2006 flood
disasters along the Danube and selected and to
produce a first overview about the physical restoration
potential in four case studies along the Lower
Danube Green Corridor (LDGC). The study can be
obtained from the WWF Danube-Carpathian Programme
(cbratrich@wwfdcp.org).
Dr. Christine Bratrich – Freshwater Team Leader,
WWF Danube-Carpathian Programme
