Hidrológiai Közlöny 1995 (75. évfolyam)

2. szám - Kozák Miklós: A Rajna 1995. évi árvize – a „környezetvédők” felelőssége

76 HIDROLÓGIAI KÖZLÖNY 1995. 75. ÉVF. 2. SZ^JVI The 1995 flood on the Rhine - The responsibillty of the "envlronmentaüsts" Kozák, M. Abstract: An abnormally high flood, referred to in the new média as the "once in hundred years" flood, has again passed down the Rhine in late January and early February of the year 1995. Thus flood, too, has caused abnormal losses along the Rhine and her tributaries. The deeper parts of somé towns üke Cologne and Koblenz were inundated several metres deep. The inhabitants of entire districts, villages had to be evacuated and thousands of these displaced persons required comprehensive care. Overtopping and saturation wee equally potential causes of breaches in the flood levees along the Lower Rhine in the Netherlands. The authorities have evacuated to safe areas somé 250 000 people in eviable order and discipline. The hydraulic engineers and the authorities were equally bent on avoiding recurrence of a disaster comparable in proportions to the memorable one caused by storm tides on February 1, 1953. Professionals and representatives of the competen! authorities have repeatedly emphasized in the Germán and Dutch televisions alike that improvements on the flood levees along the Rhine have been neglected fordecades, since any strengthening thereof met with the fierce resistance of the environmentalist movements quoting vague "ecological losses". The losses in Germany could have been avoided, or at least kept at a much lower levél by building the storage reservoirs proposed in the early seventies by the government of the province Baden-Württemberg, the professionals of the competent water authority and alsó by Prof. Dr. Emil Mosonyi, then head of the Institute of Hydraulic Engineering at the University of Karlsruhe. Mislead by the vociferous propaganda of the "environmentalísts" the public has objected to the construction of the large-capacity reservoirs contemplated. The projects conceived by highly qualified, farsifhted professionals concerned about the welfare of the public were thus prevented from becoming reality by groups of irresponsible persons. Similar disasters and mistakes can be avoided in the future by wise administration and higher reliance on qualified professionals not only along the Rhine, but in Hungary as well. Keywords: Flood control, Rhine, environmental protection Az 1953-ban elöntött területek.