Conserve our Rivers’ Natural State to Keep us Safe from Flooding

The year 2002 has come back, it seems, and floods rampage all over Europe once again. The Mura has already flooded, the Drava is a serious threat, and the Sava flooded Slavonija and caused great damages both in human settlements and in newly sown fields. Building settlements in floodland areas have proven costly. The strength of the floods is a result of the long-term projects to regulate the river-flows and the narrowing of flood-lands, which has turned the rivers into straight channels and drained the marshes and flood-lands. Such rivers/channels can’t accept huge quantities of water over a short period of time, and the increased water-flow speed causes floods so strong that even the reinforced river banks and levees are not sufficient protection from the incoming tidal waves. The circumstances were made even more serious by the fact that the lower flood-lands are populated and settled, and the names of the villages and settlements demonstrate quite well that these were areas flooded by the river on regular basis. Naturally, the danger from floods is much higher, which makes them unsuitable for settlements and agriculture. “After they learnt their tough lessons, the countries of Western Europe develop a new system that leaves the rivers a wider area of flood-land, which includes revitalization of marshes which are very successful in terms of accepting huge quantities of water, as well as revitalization of meandering, at the expense of regulated river flow, in order to decelerate the tidal waves,” says Irma Popovic from Zelena Akcija environmental association. One good example of that approach to river and flood management in Croatia is the Lonjsko Pole marsh area that protects the City of Zagreb from floods. Moreover, it is an accepted good example on international level, too. In spite of this good example, the Croatian water economy still hasn’t accepted the “give river its space” approach, and continues with the channeling of rivers and reduction of flood-escape lowlands. Naturally, such a position has negative effects on the flood-defense system, but also on the wildlife and environmental diversity of one of the best preserved flood-lands in this part of Europe. “It is time for Croatia to start learning on other peoples’ mistakes and adopt a new approach of flood defense, so that we could avoid future recurrence of events in Medjimurje and Slavonija. The huge amounts of money invested in channeling of rivers could have been used for a better purpose, having in mind that they don’t protect us from the floods and cause great damage to biodiversity” added Irma Popovic.