The Danube is the most international river in the world.

Thirteen countries together comprise 99% of the territory

of the basin and a further five countries have small
amounts of land area in the basin. These thirteen major
countries and the European Union signed the Danube
River Protection Convention in 1994, that committed
them to coordinated management of water resources.
The Danube River Protection Convention is the
legal frame for co-operation to assure protection of
water and ecological resources and their sustainable
use in the Danube River Basin.
The goals of the Danube River Protection Convention
include:
� To strengthen international cooperation in the
Danube River Basin
� Ensure sustainable water management
� Ensure conservation, improvement and rationale use
of surface and groundwaters
� Control inputs of nutrients and hazardous substances
from point and non-point sources and accidents
� Control floods and ice hazards
� Reduce pollution loads of the Black Sea from
sources in the Danube
As can be seen from this list, flood control belongs to
the main scopes of the Danube Protection Convention.
That is why the Joint Action Programme of the
ICPDR, agreed to at the end of 1999, addressed the
issue of minimising the impact of floods and necessitated
the development of an Action Programme for
Sustainable Flood Protection by 2005.
The disastrous floods in August 2002 demonstrated
the urgency of the needs for the coordinated flood protection
policy in the Danube River Basin. In Bavaria,
floods affected the Danube from Regensburg to Passau,
and many tributaries including the Inn, Traun, Salzach
and Regen. The extent of damage to infrastructure and
private properties amounted to 230 million Euro. In
Austria, August floods caused eight fatalities and
entailed enormous financial damage. They damaged
important infrastructural facilities, caused crop failures,
destroyed production sites and interrupted production.
The calculations assumed the direct damage amounting
EUR 3.1 billion. Moreover, additional indirect
damage stemmed from loss of output and consequential
losses, such as the potential loss of jobs.
In the Morava River Basin in Czech Republic 20
communities were affected by floods. Major damage
was caused to urban settlements, infrastructure and
agriculture. Damages amounted to EUR 11.7 million.
Floods affected also parts of central Slovakia, which
were inundated by flash floods and an area around
Bratislava was impacted by the Danube flood. 144
settlements and 8,678 hectares of land were flooded.
Damages amounted to EUR 36.2 million and emergency
measures cost some EUR 2.2 million. In
Hungary, several municipalities were affected by the
flooding of the Danube near Visegrad. About 2,000
people had to be evacuated, and 4,370 homes were
damaged. More serious damage was successfully
avoided by flood prevention structures and emergency
interventions, however. The overall cost of the
emergency operation in Hungary was EUR 33 million.
Flash floods in the Suceava region of northern
Romania caused 11 casualties, while 1,624 houses
were flooded, and more than 1,000 km of roads and
567 bridges were destroyed. Gas, electricity and communication
networks were also badly damaged.
These devastating floods further accelerated the
efforts of the ICPDR to elaborate the Action Programme.
At the 5th ICPDR Ordinary Meeting in
2002 the Contracting Parties decided to establish an
Expert Group on Flood Protection (FP EG). This new
expert body was charged with a clear priority task � to
elaborate an Action Programme for Sustainable Flood
Protection in the Danube River Basin until the end of
2004.
This Action Programme, has been developed and
was officially adopted at the ICPDR Ministerial Meeting
held on 13 December 2004 in Vienna. The Programme
is based on the sustainable flood protection
programmes developed in the various Danube countries
as well as on networking existing structures and
Sustainable flood protection in the Danube River Basin*
Philip Weller and Igor Liska
International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR)
* Some of the text for this presentation has been taken directly
from the Action Programme for Sustainable Flood Protection
in the Danube River Basin, December 2004.
Copyright � 2006 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
using the future-oriented knowledge base accumulated
through a wide range of activities over the past
decade. The overall goal of the Action Programme is
to achieve a long term and sustainable approach for
managing the risks of floods to protect human life and
property, while encouraging conservation and improvement
of water related ecosystems. Given the area, the
complexity and the internal differences in the Danube
River Basin, the Action Programme represents an
overall framework, which needs to be specified in further
detail for sub-basins.
At the beginning of the Action Programme, there is
a description of the general hydrological and climate
characteristics of the Danube River Basin as well as
an overview of floods and flood protection in that
area. The section on �General considerations, basic
principles and approaches� of the Action Programme
refers primarily to UN-ECE Guidelines on Sustainable
Flood Prevention, EU Best Practices on Flood Prevention,
Protection and Mitigation and to EU Communication
on flood risk management, COM(2004)472.
The major principles advocated are: (i) the shift from
defensive action against hazards to management of
the risk and living with floods (ii) the river basin
approach taking into account the Water Framework
Directive, (iii) joint action of government, municipalities
and stakeholders towards flood risk management
and awareness raising, (iv) reduction of flood risks
via natural retention, structural flood protection and
hazard reduction, and (v) solidarity.
Targets of the Action Programme are set on a
basin-wide and a sub-basin level taking into account
the above-mentioned principles.
There are four major basin-wide targets:
� Improvement of flood forecasting and early flood
warning systems; interlinking national or regional
systems
� Support for the preparation of and coordination
between sub-basin-wide flood action plans
� Creating forums for exchange of expert knowledge
� Recommendation for a common approach in
assessment of flood-prone areas and evaluation of
flood risk.
At the sub-basin level six targets have been identified
in the Action Programme:
� To reduce the adverse impact and the likelihood of
floods in each sub-basin through the development
and implementation of a long-term flood protection
and retention strategy based on the enhancement
of natural retention as far as possible
� To improve flood forecasting and warning suited to
local and regional needs as necessary
� To increase the capacity building and raise the level
of preparedness of the organizations responsible
for flood mitigation
� To develop flood risk maps
� To harmonize design criteria and safety regulations
along and across border sections
� To prevent and mitigate pollution of water caused
by floods.
The measures of the Action Programme are directly
linked with the targets mentioned above.
As regards the sub-basin measures, the Action
Programme provides a recommended structure of the
flood action plans to be prepared at the sub-basin
level and gives an overview of activities to be considered
during their preparation.
Decisions on the framework of implementation of
the sub-basin Action Plans is the task and responsibility
of the countries affected, according to their national
legislation as well as their bilateral and multilateral
agreements. In sub-basins of multinational interest,
development of Action Plans should be coordinated
using existing frameworks such as the working
groups under the Tisza Forum or Sava Commission.
Where the mechanisms of sub-basin-wide cooperation
do not exist, consideration of the establishment
of the appropriate working forums is recommended.
Financial resources necessary for the implementation
of the Action Programme should be based on the
national budgets and other national sources, on EU
funds, including new cohesion policy funds, and on
the loans from International Financing Institutions.
Of importance is the link between the flood
prevention efforts and the work to complete management
plans under the EU Water Framework Directive.
The ICPDR is the platform for the development of the
Danube Basin Analysis Report (WFD Report) and the
conclusions of the analysis are clearly important for
flood control. The report concluded that hydromorphological
alterations in the Danube Basin are significant.
In total about eighty percent of the natural
Danube floodplains have been lost. Of significance
flood protection works are a major factor in causing
alterations and threatening the good ecological status
required under the Water Framework Directive.
Efforts have begun to examine how the River
Basin Management Plans required under the Water
Framework Directive (2009) will be integrated with
the work the countries are doing on flood protection.
The challenge for the ICPDR is to ensure that these
efforts are compatible and complimentary.
Further floods in 2005 have reminded us again of
the urgency of those efforts.
1 INTRODUCTION
After Kassel (Germany, 1999) and Beijing (China,
2002) the 3rd International Symposium on Flood
Defence was held in Nijmegen (the Netherlands). One
of the objectives of this Symposium is to present new
developments in flood defence sciences and therefore
stimulate new directions and/or integration among
them. The themes that have been identified in that
respect are (1) Frameworks, (2) Measures and Solutions,
(3) Policy Making and (4) Scientific Developments.
This theme report gives an overview of
the papers that have been submitted for Scientific
Developments.
2 SELECTION OF PAPERS
Floods are the most common and widespread natural
disasters. The ISFD symposia have promoted and facilitated
the dissemination of flood-defence science to
benefit audiences with backgrounds ranging from practicing
professionals to the general public. We hope the
papers submitted and selected for this symposium can
continue to achieve this tradition. Science has to be the
foundation of flood management measures. Better
information leads to better decision making and thus
better flood management. This assignment was well
understood by most authors.
By far most contributions for this symposium have
been submitted for Scientific Developments. The
abstracts and papers are generally of high quality,
however, some of the abstracts and papers had to be
rejected. A total of 96 abstracts has been submitted
which ultimately resulted in 63 papers. Of those 63
papers 24 have been selected for oral presentation and
the rest for poster presentation or transferred to another,
more suitable theme. To avoid competition between
presentations the organization has decided against the
parallel programming of sessions with the same theme.
This means that during the symposium there will be
four consecutive sessions for Scientific Developments.
The large number of papers and the limited number of
available time slots called for the difficult task to select
the papers for oral presentation. Selected are those
papers that give a good overview of the flood science,
report on new developments, or present a view or
vision that challenges audiences to critically think
about a specific task in flood science. Furthermore,
papers must be of interest to a wide audience. Among
papers that deal with similar subjects, only the most
relevant one is selected.
3 COUNTRIES AND CATEGORIES
An international symposium like this attracts people
from all over the world. Yet there appears to be a
Scientific Developments ISFD3
M.H.I. Schropp
Institute for Inland Water Management and Waste Water Treatment (RWS RIZA), Arnhem,
The Netherlands
T.W. Soong
US Geological Survey, Illinois Water Science Center, Urbana, IL, USA
ABSTRACT: Highlights, trends, and consensus from the 63 papers submitted to the
Scientific Developments
theme of the Third International Symposium on Flood Defence (ISFD) are presented.
Realizing that absolute
protection against flooding can never be guaranteed, trends in flood management
have shifted: (1) from flood
protection to flood-risk management, (2) from reinforcing structural protection to
lowering flood levels, and (3)
to sustainable management through integrated problem solving. Improved
understanding of watershed responses,
climate changes, applications of GIS and remote-sensing technologies, and advanced
analytical tools appeared
to be the driving forces for renewing flood-risk management strategies. Technical
competence in integrating
analytical tools to form the basin wide management systems are demonstrated by
several large, transnation
models. However, analyses from social-economic-environmental points of view are
found lag in general
Copyright � 2006 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
distinct geographical distribution. Table 1 shows that
most contributions are from Europe, with Asia in second
place. As with most symposia the host nation is
very well represented with about 30% of the contributions.
In contrast, there are only few contributions
from North and South America, Africa and Australia.
This not only holds for the Scientific Development
theme but also for the other themes. We think here lies
a task for the organization committee of the next symposium
on flood defence to attract more contributions
from these regions.
Absolute protection against flooding can never be
guaranteed. In fact, over the years there has been a shift
in approach from strengthening protection to accepting
an increased chance of flooding. The objective is to
minimize the damage should a flood occur, and to
develop strategies that are sustainable. To emphasize
this shift the phrase �From defence to management�was
chosen as the theme for this symposium. Flood management
has many components including management
of disasters, of environment, and of risks. Climate,
hydrology, hydraulics, geomorphology, ecology, and
social-economics are the underlying disciplines for
analysing measures to accomplish the goals of management.
Seven topics were decided upon in 2003 as
a guideline for abstracts and subsequent paper preparations.
The topics and numbers of abstracts and papers
contributed to each subject are listed in Table 2. It is
satisfying to see that many contributions to Scientific
Developments reflect the theme of the symposium.
4 MODELLING AND MAPPING
Most papers (44%) have been submitted for the topic
�Flood forecasting, modelling and mapping�, a topic
of traditional engineering now aided by advancements
in computer technology and accessibilities to GIS data
layers and procedures. Emphases of the papers in this
subject range from the development and application
of climate-surface-groundwater model systems to techniques
for estimating model parameter values. The
development of a (real-time) flood forecasting system
for a watershed is one trend in this subject and is discussed
in a number of papers for river systems ranging
from the Goldersbach River (75km2) in Germany
(G�tzinger et al.) to the Yangtze River (1.8 million km2)
in China (Markar et al.). Performance of these models
differs according to how precipitation, tributaries, channel
network, friction coefficients, alluvial or rigid bed,
topography and groundwater-surface interactions, and
many other factors are modelled. Precipitation is a
major source of uncertainties in rainfall-runoff modelling.
Identifying the rainfall characteristics by their
sources (typhoon and thunderstorms) improves discharge
estimation for flood-control projects in urbanized
areas (Fukuoka & Tanioka). More importantly,
fluctuations in precipitation levels have grown wider
over time, thus it is necessary to develop technologies
to properly assess variations contained in the rainfall
predictions and the associated water management models
(Kawasaki et al.). More insight in the hydrological
properties of a river system can be gained by reconstructing
historical floods: Gautier et al. and Lu et al.
both reconstruct flood events from the late 19th century,
the former to improve flood forecasts, the latter to
extend hydrological time series.
Remotely-sensed data provide the information for
model validation (Villanueva & Wright, Hunter et al.)
or can be used for developing flood risk information
(Li) and flood management (Ritzen et al.). Huizinga
et al. found that better results are obtained when
floodmap areas are translated to water levels by using
pre-calculated tables. However, flood extent and water
level do not correlate well in steep areas. Although
many papers contribute to the advancement of modelling
techniques in conjunction with the use of remotely
sensed data or digital terrain data, none of the papers
discusses potential errors in these digital data, how to
118
Table 1. Contributions by region.
Oral
Region Abstracts Papers presentations
Europe 55 40 18
Asia 38 21 6
USA 1 1 0
South/Central America 2 1 0
Total 96 63 24
Table 2. Contributions by topic.
Oral
Topic Abstracts Papers presentations
Environmental 6 3 2
impact of floods
Erosion and (stage 7 4 1
increase due to)
sedimentation
Flood forecasting, 38 28 8
modelling and real
time mapping
History of and 14 4 2
experience with
flood management
Hydrology and 8 5 2
meteorology
Information, 21 18 9
management/decision
support systems
Landslide, debris flows, 2 1 0
banjirs and flash
floods
Total 96 63 24
Copyright � 2006 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
handle when the scale of the base maps changes, and
the consequences in model results. Verification of
system models also needs to be emphasized in the
development.
Predicting flood heights also requires information
about changes in bed formations and elevations. One
vivid example is the disastrous annual flooding in
Bangladesh (Islam & Sultan-Ul-Islam) that results
from sediment laden fluvial discharge, monsoon rainfalls,
and human activities. Construction of embankments
along alluvial rivers can cause aggradation of
the river bed and hence increase of flood stages.
Rogeliz et al. investigate such a case for the town of
Villavicencio (Columbia) using an 1D morphological
model. Noteworthy is the paper by Takebayashi and
Okabe, who have developed a bed deformation model
for braided streams. They conclude that the number of
streams decreases under unsteady flow conditions, and
the presence of vegetation on islands enhances this
process.
5 INTEGRATED WATER MANAGEMENT
For the subject �Information, management/decision
support systems� the trend from flood defence to risk
management is obvious in the papers by Kron et al.
and by J�pner & Tzschirner who present tools for
analysing flood risks. A proper and transparent decision
model for a variety of flood mitigation measures is
approached by balancing costs and benefits (Waarts &
Vrouwenvelder).
Quite a few papers are case studies based on recent
floods. This underlines the notion that the availability
of funds for flood research often depends on the occurrence
of (near-) calamities. Experience shows that
interest in flooding issues fades a few years after the
latest flood. Integrated Water Management (IWM) for
river basins is an approach for analysing suitable strategies
for long-term (drought) and short-term (floods)
situations. This concept is reflected in a number of
papers, particularly those dealing with decision support
systems for spatial planning. Here numerous aspects of
river management (e.g. flood control, inland shipping,
nature restoration, agriculture) are brought together
in one tool to facilitate the decision making process.
Climate change is testing the conventional techniques
of flood management in terms of building preventive
structures. New ideas are forming, for example,
seeking storage within the catchment rather than raising
river dikes (Walesch). Spatially oriented decision
support systems have given an important push to this
trend from building higher and stronger dikes to lowering
flood levels by giving more room to the river.
Papers that deal with this subject are for instance the
ones by Van Schijndel and De Kok & Huang. On the
other hand, Berben & Tank numerically illustrate that
an unwanted discharge distribution can result from
widening a river reach in a network in an expectation
to lower stages at that stretch.
6 RIVER EMBANKMENTS
Structural protection such as strengthening or raising
the dikes remains an important subject in flood management.
The use of airborne laser altimetry to produce
detailed maps of embankments for assessing their geometric
structure and therefore for preventing floods is
discussed by Franken & Flos. Developing a DSS to
optimise dike maintenance are new approaches to old
problems. A dike safety assessment system, including
the safety (and how to assess it) and risk (what kind of
safety level should a dike have) of a dike is presented
by Xu. Dike failures are simulated using 2D modelling
by Lin et al. or 1D modelling by Paquier et al. and
Zagonjolli et al. Li presents a flood risk information
management system for dike failure events for the
Lower Yellow River in Shandong Province in China.
Flooding dynamics after embankment breach have
been analysed numerically by Lin et al., Zagonjolli
et al. and Paquier et al. Aureli et al. found that the
breaching position is the main parameter affecting
flooding dynamics. Field inspection remains a necessary
component in assuring the structural soundness
of a dike, and experiences offered by Blommaart
et al. provide valuable insights in that respect.
7 SOCIAL SCIENCES
Most contributions to Scientific Developments are of a
technical nature. In contrast there are only a few papers
with a social angle. One important element in flood risk
management is to educate civilians to live with risk
and learn from the past. Dealing with multiple stakeholders
in a multifunctional system also means dealing
with unstructured problem situations, where values
119
Figure 1. Promoting risk awareness is a constant concern.
Copyright � 2006 Taylor & Francis Group plc, London, UK
are debated and knowledge is uncertain. The solution to
such a problem can benefit from the mapping of mental
models used by players involved in the decision making
process (Kolkman et al.). Environmental depletion in
Guatemala and the Czech Republic after recent flooding
disasters was investigated by Aguilar Bobadilla. It
is interesting to note that Guatemala has more information
available about damages caused by Hurricane
Mitch than the Czech Republic has after the 2002
flood. Possible future research questions with a social
angle are:
� What is the extent of public risk awareness in general
and flood risk awareness in particular?
� What do people expect from the authorities when it
comes to flood protection? Can those responsible
live up to these expectations?
� What are regional differences with regard to these
questions?
8 CONCLUSIONS
Sixty-three high quality papers have contributed to
the Scientific Developments theme of which 24 are
recommended for oral presentation. Trends in flood
management that can be distinguished are (1) shift from
flood protection to flood risk management, (2) shift
from reinforcing structural protection to lowering flood
levels, and (3) sustainable management through integrated
problem solving. Scientific information based
on new knowledge and inter-disciplinary approaches
has to be involved in flood management, notably the
social sciences and spatial planning. The use of GIS
systems, remotely-sensed data and developing decision
support systems are commonly reported in papers
submitted to Scientific Developments. Two objectives
of this symposium are: (1) to increase the application
of new research results and (2) adjust research programmes
to questions from the field. The scientists have
presented their results, now it is up to the river managers.
A challenge for ISFD4 in 2008 is to attract more
contributions from regions other than Europe and Asia.