Wasser

Improvement of flood management system

Lead Partner: Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute (SHMI)

Partner:

Slovak Hydrometeorological Institute Bratislava SHMI	SK
Slovak Water Management Enterprise   SWME	SK
National Directorate for Environment, Nature and Water NDENW	HU
VITUKI Environmental Protection and Water Management  Institute	HU
Saxon State Agency for Environment and Geology SSAEG	DE
National Institute of Hydrology and Water Management (NIHWM)	RO
Transcarpathian Administration of Melioration and Water Management	UA
Hydrometeorological Centre Uzhorod	UA

Project duration: 07/2005 – 04/2008

Short description

The disastrous flood events of the past ten years have caused numerous human casualties and the material damage reached unprecedented levels. Slovakia, Hungary, Germany, Ukraine and Romania, inspired by the successful Dutch/German flood information project Noah, were taken the initiative for a concerted action to reduce the effects of floods in their territories.

The main target of the MOSES project is to contribute to the development, implementation and management of a unified computer-based flood information system in the entire region.

For Ukraine and Romania there is firstly a need to upgrade their hydrological measurement stations. Slovakia’s main interest is to select an information system, which is compatible with the Hungarian FMIS. Hungary focuses on flood hazard mapping and has as lowland the profit of an adequate flood information system in the whole region.The German partner shows interest to implement the FLIWAS flood information system on its territory.

General impressions

MOSES project is in full frame of the on going EU Flood Initiative. Furthermore, this project is based on the experiences of NOAH project, which has been successfully done in the previous time period in the Western Europe. In countries involved in the MOSES project (Slovakia, Hungary, Ukraine, Romania and Saxony) is a comparable institutional set up for flood management. The beneficiaries are very well equipped to handle all outputs and results of the project related to the flood forecasts dissemination and to take the necessary initiation measures.

The project team will being together as much as possible the expertise of the different institutions, including decision making bodies, hazard management authorities and general public. It is recognized, that the project team is created by the experts, who together are equipped to fill in possible gaps, related to data and information for flood management, through expert judgments. The project team will share experience and expertise via well defined communication lines. All project countries will carry it the activities in their promises as much as possible.

Products of the MOSES - Project 

Preparation of regional outreach of the new State Flood Management Centre

Development of a running information and management system in three pilot locations in Saxony affiliated with the Saxon Flood Centre. The information provided in this centre will be extended and connected to the data centers of the three pilot locations. The system will provide on-time information and data which enables local decision makers direct access to the data needed. It is envisaged to also open the system to a wider user group. The Saxon pilot project will pave the way towards innovative management of floods comprising the whole region and linking data to action. This activity will start with building up of data pool and system preparation to cope with the expected needs.

Further take place an analysis over systems that already used in Saxony from the range of disaster control, flood defense and information. This analysis is necessary, in order to discuss the possibilities of a linkage among themselves.

Nature Trail of Flood Information

Apart from the introduction of the new flood management system a Nature Trail is compiled, which has the following goals:

• It is to show the citizen, which causes led to the flood events in August 2002.
• It is among to make a deeper understanding for the ecological connections of precipitation, discharges, flooding areas, sealing of plains, river training for the citizens possible.
• It is to place the citizen information about necessary measures for the flood protection.