The Water Economics Unit of REKK has been an active participant of LAND4FLOOD, a Europe-wide multidisciplinary scientific cooperation in the field of nature based flood management. LAND4FLOOD is a COST Action cooperation supported by the EU Horizon 2020 Framework Programme in order to facilitate exchange of experience, common publications, training and workshop events among participants from 40 countries.

Floods on major rivers have become more frequent and more intense for the past decades, while cities along rivers have expanded. As a result, flood damages have kept escalating, and the scale of investments into flood defense multiplied. As traditional grey infrastructure based flood defense turns out to be increasingly expensive, alternative, nature based solutions (NBS) are sought. While green solutions may be less expensive, they require land which is often privately owned. The LAND4FLOOD cooperation explores the opportunities and challenges of using private land for flood defense, including economic, legal, engineering, social and ecological considerations. Besides the international exchange of experience, we aim to connect scientists, regulators, land owners and other stakeholders to actively discuss the room for green flood defense.

During the autumn of 2019 the experts of REKK organised an international study tour and workshop to share and discuss the experience of the emergency flood polders along the river Tisza. Experts from 12 countries and several Hungarian regional water directorates participated in the event.

COST Action – CA 16209 Natural Flood Retention on Private Land