SHORT DESCRIPTION

Initial cue

The EU Directive on Flood Risks lays down that danger and hazard maps must be drawn up for so-called preliminary risk zones (Krems is one of these) by the end of 2013. The EU has not defined exactly what these maps should look like; that is up to the individual member states. However, a uniform design should apply to international rivers such as the Danube. Accordingly, an atlas with danger and hazard maps for the entire main course of the Danube has been drawn up as part of the DANUBE FLOODRISK project within the Territorial Cooperation Programme for South-East Europe. The Federal Environment Agency and via donau were responsible for the Austrian risk and hazard maps.

Goals

One aim was to gather initial experience in implementing the EU Floods Directive with regard to major international rivers. In addition, as part of implementation at the local level the general public should be involved in drawing the risk and hazard maps up, in order to start gaining experience with participation processes in flood risk management. Krems Town Council took part as an Austrian pilot community.

Sequence of events

Once Krems had agreed to take part in the project as a pilot community, agreement on the scenarios to be investigated was reached between Krems Town Council, the project team and the civil engineering consultants responsible for making the calculations. Next, two parallel participation processes took place:

1. A total of five meetings with the representatives of Krems Town Council and the firms in the harbour area, to draw up the risk and hazard maps for the harbour basin scenario
2. A total of two meetings with representatives of Krems Town Council and civil-defence organizations

At a meeting with the representatives of Krems Town Council and the firms in the harbour area in April 2012 to wind the project up, agreement was reached on making further use of and publishing the risk and hazard maps drawn up within the project.