ABSTRACT
Floods are themost common type of natural disaster inEurope (EEA, 2005). During the past five years floods have affected an estimated land area of one million square kilometres. According to CRED1 in the period between 1900 and 2006 about 415 major damaging floods occurred in Europe. Over this period the number of flood events per year increased, while the number of deaths exhibited a decrease, although the economic losses increased substantially. The decreasing loss of life is likely to be due to improved warning and rescue systems. The dramatic and consecutive flood disasters in 2002 which occurred in countries such as Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary and the Russian Federation have triggered several initiatives to improve preparedness and response to extreme weather events and enforced the need for a concerted European action (Barredo et al., 2005). The countries most affected by floods between 1998 and 2002 are in central and eastern Europe. Severe floods in 2005 further reinforced the need for concerted action.
