Transnational floodrisk management in the Rhine bassin. A historic - progressiv approach – TRANSRISK²
Transnational management of flood risks in the Rhine catchment - a historical – progressive approach
The objectives of the program TRANSRISK ² aim at a spatial extension of the study area of the program TRANSRISK. Besides the floods, we shall be interested in landuse changes and, particularly, in the transformations of the rivers courses. <br />A particular attention will also payed to the risks perception (communication, information), to the vulnerability, as to the contribution to a flood risk management shared on both sides of the border.<br />
Reconstitute the historic floods, study their causes and consequences, their management, in a comparative way, between France and Germany
The first objective of the project TRANSRISK ² consists in the strengthening of the geohistorical transnational database of the floods established during the program TRANSRISK. In order to do that, we are adopting a triple extension: temporal, spatial, and thematic. It will indeed be a question of enriching the database by going back to the XVth century, by extending the study to the bordering territories. The landuse changes on a regional scale will also be integrated and, particularly, the transformations of rivers courses, an important factor of contextualization of the historic floods.<br />The second objective concerns the study of the perception and the acceptance of risks, the processes of communication and information, the vulnerability and the resilience, in order to contribute to the implementation of a complete and transnational management of the flood risk. For this territory divided between France, Germany and Swiss, we will access to a systematic understanding of the risk management of floods. We will analyze the differences and the spatio- temporal evolutions of the perceptions, the political decisions, the technical choices and planning, but also the public speeches about the risk, within the framework of the global warming.<br />The third objective aims, through a historical-progressive modelling, at transposing the extreme floods observed since the XVIIIth century into the current situation, in particular the more than centennial events of recurrence. This point is deeply linked to the objectives of the European directive on the management of the floods. So that we can hope for important effects in applied researches, in terms of risk management and collaboration with all the actors of risk (public, administrations, etc.).<br />The achievement of these objectives implies the strengthening of interdisciplinary research.<br />
The advantage of the program TRANSRISK ² is to work on a common and binational space, on the basis of methods which have already been validated in the program TRANSRISK (2008 - 2011). For every WP, the partners work together on the same catchment, without taking borders into account, in a strong interdisciplinary logic, according to the skills of each (scientific and linguistic).
- WP1: spatial extension of the historical research initiated during the program TRANSRISK (archives analysis), to supply the database with informations from a larger area.
- WP2: transmission of the information. Evaluation and diachronic follow-up of the reactions of the actors (archives research and questionnaires).
- WP3: extension of the database towards the information concerning the landuse changes (archives and diachronic study of the historic maps).
- WP4: study of the vulnerabilities:
- Economic vulnerability: the information collected in the archives concerning the damages will be standardized to be integrated in a SIG, in oder to follow the evolution.
- Institutional vulnerability: evaluation of the feedbacks (operating experience, in particular through the comparison of crisis managements in time and space between France and Germany.
-WP5: evaluation of the flood risk. Comparison of the historical floods and the weather triggering factors.
-WP6: historic - progressive modelling of the reference floods, with the model of flow LARSIM.
-WP7: study and evaluation of the applicability of the fuzzy logics to describe and classify qualitatively the floods.
-WP8: securing data, integration of the data in the collaborative environment TAMBORA.org.
-WP9: the culture of the risk and the media coverage of the results (tools of pedagogy, communication, information).
- Database TRANSRISK on the historic floods in the Rhine catchment and for the Moselle between 1480 and 2015 (more than 3.000 events).
- Reconstruction of the reference events in the Rhine Graben (description, natural and human factors, consequences, management, mapping).
- Cross-border inquiries on the perception and the culture of the flood risk.
- Web site ORRION (Observatoire Régional des Risques d'Inondation), participative database on the historical floods in the Rhine Graben (French and German site).
- Database of the floodmarks in Alsace and program of new floodmarks implementation.
- Database images on the historic floods in the Rhine Graben
- Maps of landuse change from the 19th century to nowadays
1) Applied researches:
- Collaboration with the administrations in charge of the flood risk management within the framework of the implementation of the regulatory procedures (Plan de Prévention des Risques d'inondation, Programme d'Action de Prévention des Inondation, European directive «Floods«).
- Organization of a memory and remembrance action around the historic floods (on 1919 - 2019).
2) Repercussions within the framework of a program INTERREG
7 scientific papers ( 3 in international papers)
12 communications or conferences (7 international and one as keynote speaker)
4 conferences of scientific popularization
1 television program
1 radio program
3 press articles
The Transrisk project is to be considered as the development of the DFG/ANR Transrisk program «Analyse interdisciplinaire et transfrontalière de l’histoire des risques d’inondation dans l’espace du Rhin-Supérieur » (ANR-07-FRAL-025 » which has been successfully concluded in 2011. This strong partnership made it possible to create, for the southern part of the Upper Rhine, a transnational data base of historical floods for the last three hundred years. In addition, it was possible to define et classify the types of floods and the climatic context in which they took place. With case studies on a local scale in both countries, the evolution of the flood risk has been analysed and translated into maps, especially through the part played by land occupation. The results increased our knowledge and afforded a better assessment of historical floods: the conclusions have been presented and discussed with the relevant management services, especially because these services are included in the recommendations of the European Order on flood management.
The link between the different stages of this Order till 2015 is a key for the new Transrisk research program. The aims are improving the methods from TRANSRISK with new case - studies and widening of the analysis in space, to enlarge the database of the historical floods from 1700 to nowdays. In the same way, the new land occupations will be studied on a regional scale and, particularly, the transformations of the waterways, which are an important factor of the historical floods. After the promising results of the first Transrisk program, the main focus point of the new Transrisk will be first to study the perception and acceptance of the risks (in particular through communication and information), secondly to analyse vulnerability, the aim of the research being to contribute to a complete and integrated management of the flood risk on both sides of the border. For this Franco-German territory, the project aims to afford a complete and coherent system of understanding of flood risk management by analysing the spatial and temporal differences and evolutions of the risk perception, the political decisions, the technical and land planning choices, the part played by public statements about risks in the current difficult context of global warming. A special attention will be given to transposing the extreme flood events since the XVth century on the existing situation. This thought process aims at evaluating the historically recurrent dramatic event more than the centennial events, which is in complete concordance with the European Order. In order to reach these objectives, the interdisciplinary study must be reinforced and the collaboration with other scientific disciplines which are able to offer new ways of thinking and new tools. But the Transrisk project is also an applied science project: it aims at the development of a territorially-rooted risk culture, through cooperation with the competent administrations and an integration of other actors of risk management on a local scale (History Societies, representatives, schools, enterprises).
Project coordination
Brice Martin (Centre de Recherche sur les Economies, les Sociétés, les Arts et les Techniques) – brice.martin@uha.fr
The author of this summary is the project coordinator, who is responsible for the content of this summary. The ANR declines any responsibility as for its contents.
Partner
LMIA Laboratoire de mathématiques, informatique et applications
IPG, Uni Freiburg Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg, Institut für Physische Geographie
LGP Laboratoire de Géographie Physique
LIVE Laboratoire Image, Ville, Environnement
GESTE Laboratoire Gestion Territoriale de l'Eau et de l'Environnement
CERDACC Centre Européen de recherche sur le Risque, le Droit des Accidents Collectifs et des Catastrophes
CRESAT Centre de Recherche sur les Economies, les Sociétés, les Arts et les Techniques
Help of the ANR 270,505 euros
Beginning and duration of the scientific project:
February 2014
- 36 Months
