Land consolidation as a tool for flood prevention
Drees, Andreas and Rainer Sunderhauf
Flood catastrophes along German rivers have always appeared, but their number has increased as well as the disasters they cause. The German state Brandenburg has initiated different measurements along the rivers Oder and Elbe for sustainable flood prevention. Firstly some dykes were strengthened and/or raised. Additionally it was considered to create specific flood areas by setting back dykes. As a first project of the latter the Elbe dyke at Lenzen was planned to be set back to win about 600 ha land for retention. As a main precondition for this project the needed land had to be taken into public ownership. More than 60 private owners were affected. Because many of them refused to sell their land, a land consolidation project was started. This enabled not only to get hand on the needed land but to strengthen the agricultural production in the area and to include aspects of nature conservation, municipality needs and tourism as well. The project was started in 2000 parallel to the planning process of the resetting of the dyke. After negotiations with about 520 owners of in total 3,500 ha about 160 owners throughout the whole project area offered to sell their land. Merging these plots and the already state owned properties in the new flooding area saved the directly affected owners who didn't want to sell from expropriation by reallocating their properties to the back side of the new dyke. The heavy difference between owners and public authorities was solved smoothly. As a result the structure of ownership in the whole area was improved. A project plan for improvement of infrastructure, nature conservation and village renewal was developed in parallel. The implementation of this project plan on property level made the land consolidation a really comprehensive measurement.
Event: XXIII International FIG Congress : Shaping the change
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