Floods in the Meuse basin: Event descriptions and an international view on ongoing measures

Abstract

In recent years the frequency and magnitude of floods in the river Meuse has been relatively large. These floods have caused a lot of damage, but have also produced a lot of valuable information. The meteorological and hydrological conditions that caused these floods have been measured and analysed by different institutes in the different countries of the Meuse basin. The working group on Hydrology and Floods of the International Meuse Commission merged the data for the 1993, 1995, 2002 and 2003 flood events. This dataset has been used to analyse the general patterns that generate flood waves in the river Meuse. The analysis reveals that the hydrological response of the different sub‐catchments strongly varies both in time and space. Another interesting observation is that separate flood waves occur at the same time at different stretches of the Meuse. Ideally, an integrated flood action plan for the Meuse aims at conserving or even enlarging the lag times between the different flood waves. Based on these observations the ongoing and proposed national measures to reduce flood damage risk in the Meuse and its tributaries are looked at from an international perspective.

Keywords::

• International flood action plan
• discharge
• precipitation
• timing of flood peaks
• Meuse