Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Figure 7.5
Flooding along the
River Oder in Eastern Europe,
summer 1997.
Lessons have also been learned by the
emergency services, particularly about the need
to restore and further protect the dykes. But it
would not appear that lessons have been learned
scheme might be ecologically damaging.
Alternaabout floodplain management or about
pollution tive scenarios would restore the upper
River storage in flood risk areas, since no plans
are yet in preparation for new thinking here.
What needs to be done is a more systematic
approach to restrainembankments, and thereby
decreasing the river's ing encroachment of urban
areas into the floodplain, and better contingency
planning for the major floods that occur. As far
as the environmental damage is concerned, it
would also appear that no lessons have been
learned and no data have been collected; priority
has been given— perhaps understandably in the
context—to humanitarian relief and economic
recovery.
One engineering 'solution' seeks to integrate
the Oder with the west German navigation, and
thereby with the whole of the European inland
waterway system, through the construction of
river training works up the upper Oder to
contain the flood waters in an enlarged channel.
This could bring economic growth to southern
Poland, since the Oder is currently not
navigable by the barges using the European
waterways. But such a Oder and its floodplain
to a more natural state, perhaps by setting back
the existing system of flood conveyance
capacity, thus reducing the vulnerability of
urban communities downstream,
But much will depend on political will and on
resources. Again the situation is worst in Poland,
being a poorer country than Germany. A grant of
US$300 million was provided to Poland by the
World Bank after the 1997 floods, but even this
apparently large sum is not likely to result in any
significantly reconfigured river or major change
in the way that the floodplain is used. Thus there
is a real chance that floods like those in 1997 will
recur and it is not clear that a coherent plan for
