World Rivers Day – Water Under the Bridge?

September 22 is World Rivers Day. The last European wild river flows in Albania. All other European rivers have been engineered, dried up and polluted. After the fish kill in the Odra River two years ago, no action was taken. There are more and more floods with massive damage to buildings. The insurance companies say there is nothing they can do.

Just as there are hardly any real primeval forests left in Europe, there are no more wild rivers either. Every year since 2005, September 22 marks the World Rivers Day. “Water bodies are a habitat for many plants and animals and contribute to the preservation of biodiversity,” says the German Federal Ministry for the Environment. “We must therefore reconcile the protection and use of water in the best possible way.”
Still it’s hard to believe that there will ever be such a reconciliation. The best way to help the woods and waters is to leave them alone. But we humans have been engineering and drying up rivers for centuries. Hydroelectric power plants, reservoirs and drilling for oil have huge negative impacts on rivers. The Spree River through Berlin is really more of a sewer than a river. And after the large-scale fish kill in the Polish Odra River in Summer 2022, no action was taken whatsoever.

Environmental organizations, governments and politicians promised to get to the bottom of it and prevent Poland from discharging brackish water and wastewater with increased salinity into the rivers. The Polish government was also open to change, but still nothing has happened yet. Instead, companies continue to discharge highly toxic wastewater into rivers without any restrictions. This is the case in Poland and in all of Europe.

The monitoring of what goes into rivers and groundwater is still insufficient. It is imperative that the regulations for wastewater discharge into rivers be tightened, ideally to a minimum salt content. But it’s the same old story: Business comes before nature, as companies would have to improve their wastewater systems, and a European commission would have to review them. But nobody wants to spend money on this.
The last remaining wild river in all of Europe, the Vjosa in Albania, was declared a nature reserve as recently as 2020. Now it’s Greece’s turn: So far, a unique ecosystem has been able to develop here without any interference by human influences. But construction projects are increasingly threatening to change the valuable habitat forever – even to destroy it permanently. In the Balkans, for example, more and more hydroelectric power plants are being built along the rivers. Fortunately, Albania declared the Vjosa basin the first Wild River National Park in Europe on March 15, 2023. This will allow the river to flow free and untamed.

Of course, there used to be wild rivers in Germany, too. The Isar River between Krün and the Sylvenstein reservoir is considered one of the few remaining natural river landscapes of the Alps. However, this area is under severe threat.
Germany has a long tradition of river engineering. The River Rhine, once wild and meandering through the countryside, had already been tamed by 1876, so that merchant ships could travel on it more easily. As a result, nature suffered a lot: Many alluvial forests died, fish could no longer survive, and birds didn’t find enough food anymore. Natural landscapes were largely removed. Only in a few places, there are still relics of the former Rhine loops.
These days, there are frequent flood disasters, most recently in Austria and the Czech Republic. More and more roads are flooded, and villages have to be evacuated. Have they been built too close to the water or was it so hard to imagine that the rivers might burst their banks one day?

The German Insurance Association (Gesamtverband der deutschen Versicherungswirtschaft, GDV) has called for a ban on building in flood plains. According to a study recently published by the GDV, more than 300,000 properties are at risk of flooding in Germany alone. It would be reckless, the study finds, to build in areas where flooding can be expected. Designating these areas as building ground should therefore be prohibited, says the GDV.

EU member states are required to designate floodplains where no construction may take place in the future. However, this is not enforced in many cases. Building lots by the water are particularly popular and expensive, and houses on rivers are often considered prime real estate. Also, in many cases, people have been dwelling in these areas for decades, meaning that those properties are protected under German law. It is as it is: Why do rivers have to be restricted and give way for human benefit? What if we humans gave way for nature instead and allowed the rivers to flow free and grow as big as nature intended them to?