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3.2.1        Today’s floodplains in Europe

In Europe already up to 90 % of the former riparian floodplains have been lost during the last centuries or they are functionally no longer intact (Tockner, et al., 2009, 2002). The main reason for the loss of active floodplains is the continued decline in floodplain area due to flood protections to prevent land uses not or less compatible with inundations (such as agriculture, or urban expansion), or infrastructure for hydropower development or maintenance of shipping channels (see section 3.3).

For example in Germany, where a national inventory accounted 70 to 90 % of floodplain area loss along 10 000 kilometres of 79 larger rivers and streams of 8 river basins (BMU and BfN 2009; Brunotte, et al., 2009). For the larger rivers, the loss is around 90 % of the 15 000 km² there once was, and in general only 1 % to 2 % of the former morphological floodplain is currently covered with near-nature floodplain forest (Brunotte, et al., 2009). For the different river sections of the Danube River the floodplain area loss varies between 73 and 95 %, where the Danube delta only lost around 30 % (Schneider, 2010; Schneider, et al., 2009). When including the tributaries, the floodplain loss can be estimated at 80 % (see table 3.1).