Effective flood management requires an integrated approach. Holistic river basin management, as practised by the NRW water associations for decades, provides a sensible framework for this. The fact that the NRW State Flood Protection Pact signed today by the Ministry of the Environment, the district governments, the municipalities, cities and districts, together with the water boards, now wants to take an integral view of flood protection and improve it sends out a good and important signal.
„The water associations welcome the holistic approach to flood protection in river catchment areas and are happy to contribute their planning and technical expertise to the pact,“ says Dr Uwe Moshage, Chairman of the agw.
The water boards contribute to the improvement of the landscape water balance through numerous measures, including renaturalisation projects. Investments in technical flood protection and co-operations to support the creation of municipal flood protection concepts also serve to improve flood protection.
„We hope that the state pact on flood protection in North Rhine-Westphalia signed today will provide the urgently needed acceleration and streamlining of planning and approval procedures, a resounding effect on land availability and improved provision and faster access to funding in the future,“ says Jennifer Schäfer-Sack, Managing Director of agw. The water associations attach great importance to the fact that the regional pacts provide constructive support for flood protection measures that have already been implemented.
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