Repair of flood damages, Germany

Ecological building support for the reparation of damage caused by the flood in August 2002.

Problem definition
After the flood in August 2002 an extensive reconstruction program for repair of the flood damages was launched in the Free State of Saxony. After providing the first disaster emergency aid, in the context of planning the next measures, the necessity to consider also ecological interests became obvious.

Objective
During the flood the waters found themselves new ways (respectively old ones that had been built-up so far) in many places and assumed routes that have a flood-reducing effect due to their wide discharge bed, low depth, pebbles and pebble islands calming the water flow as well as meanders. A similar effect was caused outside of built-up areas because new retention spaces were opened-up there. As a result the flood had created various valuable habitats.
The chances to exploit this naturally-grown situation for medium- and long-term flood protection are very promising and have to be brought in line with the prevailing interests of settlement and infrastructure as well as danger prevention.

Concerned areas - navigable water courses under federal or state jurisdiction and non-navigable streams under local jurisdiction, left and right of the river Elbe, in the districts of Meißen and Riesa-Großenhain

• Triebisch
• Ketzerbach
• Wilde Sau
• Freiberger Mulde

Functions of the ecological building support

• to detect nature-protection related legal conflicts in the course of removing the flood damages
• to prepare solutions for them and to co-ordinate the necessary collaboration with the competent authorities
• to avoid construction measures in the newly emerged ecologically valuable floodplain systems unless they serve for direct danger prevention
• to assess the found solutions in co-operation with the consulting engineers in charge (execution documents, bills of quantities, building specifications, drawings …)
• approval check for construction measures
• construction supervision during their execution
• to check and amend the flood protection concepts from the ecological point of view and based on experience figures