The Rhine flood

Main Facts

The Rhine is Europe's busiest river. It is 1320km long.
Its course rising in the Swiss Alps from melting snow and passing through Switzerland, Germany, France and the Netherlands before entering the north Sea.
The Rhine Basin includes a population of 40 million from 9 countries and some of the world's most important industrial and agriculture areas.
On Dutch border the Rhine rose 16.66m above sea level.
In late January / early February 1995, the Rhine suffered catastrophic flooding. Disruption was great in the Netherlands where 75 per cent of the land is below sea level.

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Building - Spread of impermeable man-made surfaces has increased the speed with which run-off enters the rivers channels.
Farming techniques - Soils store less water and surface run-off increases.
Clearing of vegetation - Farmers cutting hedges/trees mean less vegetation to soak up water.
Embankments - Creates faster and deeper river flow.
Channel changes - speed up flow so that a flood surge takes two - three days instead of five to move downstream.

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Heavy rainfall meant that soils were saturated
Unusually mild temperatures that melted snow in the Alps produced far too much water with which the basin could cope.
Groundwater stores were also high as winter rain in the Rhine basin had increased by 40 per cent since 1990, following average temperature rise of 1 to 1.5°C.

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