Rethinking Germany’s Rivers

As German politicians struggle to come up with the billions of euros needed to rebuild after the worst floods of the century, some prominent voices are calling for a new strategy regarding development along the nation’s rivers. Current policies of construction along river banks and in flood plains are now being questioned and environmentalists charge such practices are largely responsible for the severity of the recent floods.

“If we don’t change the way we deal with our rivers, we’re asking for a century of ‘floods of the century’,” said Steffi Lemke, parliamentary leader of the Green Party.

Such talk is finding increasing resonance in Germany, as people and politicians survey the vast swathes of land that have been laid waste in parts of eastern and northern Germany after the Elbe and Danube rivers, along with their tributaries, jumped their banks in the wake of torrential rains over central Europe.

The flood surge in the Elbe moved down the river from the Czech Republic with destructive force, inundating Germany’s eastern jewel, Dresden, then drowning town after town on its way downstream. Despite early warnings and massive efforts to erect dykes and other defenses, the raging water could not be contained.

Now in the flood’s aftermath, the question is: how can we prevent this from happening again?

River Conference

On Wednesday, Kurt Bodewig, federal Minister of Transport, Building and Housing, called for a national conference involving the states, muncipalities and various associations to discuss the future of Germany’s rivers. The goal, according to a ministry spokesman, is to come up with a master plan for flood protection. No date has yet been set.

Environmentalists have been vocal in their criticism of Germany's current river policies, blaming the severity of the floods on what they see as a misguided policy of constricting rivers with levees and locks and turning them into “superhighways” for barge transport. They note that the Elbe river is 100 kilometers shorter than it was 150 years ago and that it has lost some 85% of the forests that once lay in its flood plains. As a result, the speed of the river has quadrupled, according to the German environmental group BUND.

“We demand that both Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and candidate Edmund Stoiber make this a priority and stop further development along the Donau and Elbe. That (development) is the cause of the catastrophe that we’re dealing with today,” said Gerhard Timm, an official with BUND. “Preventive flood protection means giving the rivers room to breathe.”

Environmentalists want to use one billion euro (dollars) planned for river development on moving the levees back and establishing flood plains that could accept overflows from swollen rivers, slowing them down and preventing widespread flooding in built-up areas.

The demands are not falling on deaf ears. In a cabinet meeting this week, Chancellor Schröder said a reconsideration of development plans for the Elbe river was “sensible and necessary” even as his Social Democrats rejected overall criticism of its Elbe policy. A spokesman from the transport ministry said the government has no plans to enlarge development along the river nor introduce more constricting locks.

Michael Müller, parliamentary flood leader for the SPD, could have been reading off a page ripped form an environmentalist handbook when he called it dangerous for people “when the rivers are deepened, built up, and straightened, or when the flood plains disappear. “

Looking at Holland

Past attempts to change river policy in Germany have mostly met with failure or lack of interest. After huge floods on the Oder River in 1997, then chancellor Helmut Kohl appealed for new measures to ease pressure on the waterway. In the end, nothing came of it.

This time however, the sheer level of devastation could move the German government to act. It has begun looking at its neighbor, the Netherlands, which changed its policies on rivers after floods on the Rhine River seven years ago. The Dutch government came up with a new concept to return the river to its original bed. It moved the levees back some 200 meters and specified certains areas that could be flooded if necessary to relieve pressure on the river.

German thinking could be moving in that direction.

“We need to build with the river, “ said Transportation Minister Bodewig, “not against the current.”