During recent flooding in Budapest, the Danube rose to 8.9 metres. Credit: Zoltán Dujisin/IPS

By Zoltán Dujisin
BUDAPEST, Jun 15 2013 (IPS)

Record floods in Central and Eastern Europe have highlighted some of the challenges of climate change for the continent, as well as the floods’ potential to spur populist politics.

An extraordinarily long winter followed by weeks of intense rains has saturated soils and caused large rivers, such as the Danube and the Elbe, to overflow. The floods have wreaked havoc in the region, killing 21 people and forcing the evacuation of several tens of thousands.

In Halle, Germany, 30,000 people were forced to leave their homes, after the Elbe reached its highest levels in 400 years. In Austria, mudslides brought about the closure of roads and train lines. The Polish capital of Warsaw was partially flooded, and in the Czech Republic, 20,000 people were evacuated from 700 different localities.

Most of the flood victims – 10 out of 21 – are Czech, having been hit by heavy rains that at one point brought down hail stones of the size of ping-pong balls.

Czechs feared for the fate of their medieval capital Prague, as authorities mobilised heavy machinery to sustain one of the city’s oldest symbols, the Charles Bridge, dating from the 14th century. Hospitals and even the city’s zoo were evacuated.

The Czech government has estimated the damage at 800 million Euros, promising to waive the income tax for companies affected by the catastrophe.

None of this drama was apparent in the Hungarian capital Budapest, where the Danube rose to 8.9 metres, the highest water level ever recorded.

In contrast to the chaos and fear seen elsewhere in the region, the floods became a hotspot for what authorities call “catastrophe tourism”, in reference to the masses of locals and foreign visitors who gather around the riverside, taking pictures and often obstructing authorities’ efforts to contain the flood.

In a city whose bridges are usually a prime location for suicide attempts, many were surprised to see a few daring tourists using them to dive into the flooded river. Citizens appeared equally unconcerned; youths drove skim boards into the water while the wealthiest water skied.

The calm and surreal atmosphere in Budapest nevertheless reflected a situation firmly under control, in the capital as well as in the countryside.

Testing governments

The differences in responses to the floods have highlighted the need for comprehensive and preventive strategies in a region where extreme weather phenomena are likely to increase as a result of climate change.

“Floods such as these put to test the ability of affected societies to adapt,” Sergio Tirado, a researcher at the Centre for Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Policy in Budapest, told IPS.

“The impact of climate change will be more or less severe depending on the region’s response, namely in terms of developing early warning systems or improving physical protection barriers against water rises,” he said.

Yet while many activists have directly blamed global warming for the recent events, Tirado was cautious about making direct causal links. “It is likely that as a result of climate change, the frequency of such extreme weather events is increasing, and this problem may grow in future decades.”

The smooth handling of the floods by Hungarian authorities has been hailed as a victory by its prime minister, Viktor Orbán, which in the last few years has become the European Union’s (EU) most controversial politician due to his authoritarian tendencies.

Orbán has been criticised by European officials for his heavy-handed approach to governance. He has been accused of challenging the independence of the judiciary, conducting widespread purges in the public administration and endangering freedom of expression.

As a result, the conservative prime minister, under attack at home and abroad, saw the floods as an opportunity to stoke citizens’ patriotic feelings and regain lost popularity.

Orbán capitalised on the efforts of the 10,000 soldiers, volunteers and even prisoners that were involved in placing some 10 million sandbags along the 700 kilometres of Danube riverside located in Hungarian territory.

During the floods, TV and online coverage constantly showed the prime minister in action: Orbán was always at the site of events, wearing rubber boots and a vest, walking against the river current, flying in helicopters, discussing hydrographic maps with experts and cracking jokes with workers.

Looking extremely tired, the prime minister made frequent live updates on the spot to keep citizens informed on what he called “the worst floods ever”.

Opposition politicians, alarmed by Orban’s successful show off of his leadership abilities, rushed to imitate the prime minister and were seen setting up dikes along flooded areas. Pro-government media were quick to show one of these dikes breaking.

While Hungarians were relieved that only 1,500 people required evacuation and that not a single victim was reported, many of Orban’s opponents will be concerned that his stunts against the forces of nature will convince many that he is strong enough to endure another onslaught of criticism from the European Union.

As the Danube naturally flows through Serbia. Credit: Vesna Zimonjic/IPS.

By Vesna Peric Zimonjic
BELGRADE, Jun 30 2012 (IPS)

Wildlife is being increasingly threatened around the Danube river, the “Amazon of Europe”. The need for profit is taking over from the need to protect natural resources along the river.

Austria and Croatia are engaged in a major project to tame the Danube, to ‘correct’ its meandering stream into a straight one to facilitate commercial shipping along the river to the Black Sea.

“Threats to wildlife are serious,” head of the Worldwide Fund for Nature in Serbia Duska Dimovic told IPS. “Wildlife is trans-border; birds and fish go freely between Serbia and Croatia. Major works in one of the countries will influence all the immediate neighbours along the river.”

This Amazon of Europe comes with 800,000 hectares of green belt along its banks and those of its tributaries, the Drava and Mura, in five countries – Austria, Croatia, Hungary, Serbia and Slovakia.

This is a unique natural reserve of floodplain and wetland wildlife, home to a third of the region’s plant species, half of fish and mammal species and 63 percent of bird species.

Colonies of rare white tailed eagles, little tern, black stork, beaver and otter thrive in the area. The ship sturgeon here is nearly extinct but survives. The rare red deer can also be sighted coming to the riverbank.

And thousands of families depend on the Danube through fishing and cultivation, which is tuned to the river’s flooding and ebbing.

Commercial considerations threaten all this. The almost 3,000 km Danube connects the European continent from the West to the East. The 10 nations along its banks (Germany, Austria, Slovakia, Hungary, Croatia, Serbia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova and Ukraine) rely on it for cheap transport of goods.

Directly or indirectly, the Danube serves more than 40 European nations to move millions of tonnes of goods from Western Europe to the Black Sea annually. The river is linked to the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal that begins in the Rhine Delta in Rotterdam (the Netherlands).

“The interest of major European countries in commercial shipping is understandable,” says economist Nebojsa Savic. “Transport of trucks on huge barges is 14 times cheaper than sending them by road, and five times cheaper than putting them on trains.” A barge can carry up to 100 trucks. Commercial transport on the Danube has risen 27 percent in the past two years, according to the Statistics Office of Serbia.

The Danube runs 600 kilometres through Serbia. It enters in the north, from Hungary, forms the natural north-western border with Croatia, and flows further to Romania.

Major new works to straighten the slow flow of the winding Danube comprise building of groynes, T-shaped barriers which prevent meandering and the shifting of river banks, and also the creation of natural sand islands in the middle. But such works can also completely change the eco-system of the area. Birds and fish, and animals as well, lose their natural habitat and leave or even die, environmentalists warn.

Austria has built several dozen groynes along 49 kilometres of the Danube east of Vienna at a cost of 274 million dollars. Pressures by Hungarian environmentalists have prevented a similar same project in that country.

According to international plans for Danube regulation, Croatia could build 53 groynes along its 53 km of the river. The new government that took over earlier this year has yet to take a decision on this proposal, which is strongly opposed by environmentalists.

“That would mean the certain death of Kopacki Rit, for example,” says Arno Mohl, conservation expert from the Worldwide Fund for Nature, who visited the region last week.

Kopacki rit, situated near the confluence of the Drava river and the Danube in Croatia, is a unique natural habitat for more than 260 bird species. Among them are the great white egret and the European green woodpecker. Many fish and insect species thrive here as well.

“Let us hope that Croatia and Serbia will not make the mistake my country made in the 1970s and 1980s with regulation of the Danube flow,” Mohl added. He is from Austria, which began the project of taming the river decades ago.

In Serbia it remains unclear what will happen in the near future. General elections were held on May 6, but the country still has no government, and may not for more than a month.