The Great Flood of 1997 in Poland

Abstract

The flood that occurred in summer 1997 in Poland, affecting the drainage basins of the Odra and the Vistula, caused 54 fatalities and material losses of the order of billions of US$. The flood struck a large part of the country and caused inundation of 665 000 ha of land. The number of evacuees was 162 thousand. The rhetoric commonly used in Poland refers to the Great Flood of 1997 as an event whose scale exceeded all imagination about the possible size of the disaster. Indeed, historic maxima of river stage and flow rate were considerably exceeded. From the hydrological point of view, this flood was a very rare event, with a return period in some river cross-sections of the order of a thousand years and more. As this natural disaster, striking a dynamically developing country-in-transition, attracted much international interest, a holistic view of it is presented. Attempts to answer the questions: "Could the disaster have been avoided?" and "What lessons can be learnt from the flood?" are also made. La grande crue de 1997 en PologneRésumé La crue survenue pendant l'été 1997 en Pologne, qui a affecté les bassins de l'Oder et de la Vistule, a causé la mort de 54 personnes et des pertes matérielles de plusieurs milliards de dollars américains. La crue a paralysé une grande partie du pays et inondé 665 000 hectares. 162 000 personnes ont du être évacuées. On pense communément en Pologne que la crue de 1997 est un événement dont l'ampleur dépasse tout ce qui pouvait être imaginé. Les maximums historiques de hauteur d'eau et de débit ont en effet été largement dépassés. D'un point de vue hydrologique, la crue fut un événement très rare, dont la durée de retour estimée en quelques stations est au moins de l'ordre du millier d'années. Comme ce désastre naturel, frappant un pays dynamique en pleine phase de transition économique, a suscité un vaste intérêt au niveau international, nous en présentons une vue synthétique. Des tentatives de réponses aux questions "Le désastre aurait-il pu être évité ?" et "Quelles enseignements peut-on tirer de la crue ?" sont également proposées.

Floods in the Upper Part of Vistula and Odra River Basins in the 19th and 20th Centuries / Powodzie W Górnej Części Dorzeczy Wisły I Odry W XIX I XX Wieku

“…Searching for such sources and verifying their contents requires large, interdisciplinary teams because it is a very time-consuming task that requires the knowledge of already "dead" languages alongside historical and geographical knowledge. A significant element of the historical records concerning the floods that affected the area in question have been studied and presented in numerous publications [2][3][4][7][8][9][10][11][12]. In the 19 th century, rainfall and river water stages used to be observed visually until the 1870s when systematic instrumental measurements began at rain and gauging stations.…”

“…In Krakow, the highest water stage was recorded on 12 July at 5.30 pm and the speed at which the flood wave moved was around 2.3 km/h. The water stages recorded in Krakow during that flood on the Vistula River were only exceeded during the memorable flood of 1997, which has been described in a fairly detailed manner in the literature [10,11].…”

“…The analysis also demonstrates that in the second half of the 20 th century, there were fewer large floods but the magnitude and extent of such events increased. Of particular note were the floods that occurred in 1960, 1972, 1977 and 1985 and also the catastrophic flood of 1997 [9,10].…”

Fluctuations of floods of the River Morava (Czech Republic) in the 1691–2009 period: interactions of natural and anthropogenic factors

“…A concentration of extreme floods in the 1990s-2000s are also recorded in many other European countries (e.g. Kundzewicz et al, 1999Kundzewicz et al, , 2005aUlbrich et al, 2003a,b;Jaun et al, 2008;Marsh, 2008;Schmutz et al, 2008), and are sometimes attributed to the influence of global warming (Kundzewicz et al, 2005b;Solomon et al, 2007).…”

Selection of historic heavy large-scale rainfall events in the Czech Republic

“…This is the case for the recent Central European floods in July 1997 and August 2002. In 1997, extensive flooding affected mainly the Oder river basin and the tributaries of the Danube (e.g., Kundzewicz et al, 1999;Niedzwiedz, 1999). In 2002, flooding affected the Elbe and Danube river basins (e.g., Grazziny and van der Grijn, 2003;Ulbrich et al, 2003a, b).…”