EGU22-11641
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-11641
EGU General Assembly 2022
© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

More than just fast flowing water: the landscape impact of the July 2021 west Germany flood

Rainer Bell1, Michael Dietze2, Annegret Thieken3, Kristen Cook2, Christoff Andermann2, Alexander Beer4, Ana Lucia Vela5, Johannes B. Ries6, Maximilian Brell7, Anette Eltner8, Sigrid Roessner7, Lothar Schrott1, Thomas Iserloh6, Manuel Seeger6, and Ugur Öztürk3,9
Rainer Bell et al.
  • 1Department of Geography, University of Bonn, Bonn, Germany (rbell@uni-bonn.de)
  • 2GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Geomorphology Division. Potsdam, Germany
  • 3Institute of Environmental Science and Geography, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
  • 4Department of Geosciences, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
  • 5Center for Applied Geosciences, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany
  • 6Department of Physical Geography, Trier University, Trier, Germany
  • 7GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Section 1.4 - Remote Sensing and Geoinformatics, Potsdam, Germany
  • 8Institute of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany
  • 9GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Section 2.6 - Seismic Hazard and Risk Dynamics, Potsdam, Germany

Rain driven flash floods have severe impacts on society and landscape functions. The July 2021 flood in the Eifel region, west Germany, was one drastic example of such impact. While media and scientists rightfully highlighted the meteorological and hydrological aspects of this flood, it was the concurrent reorganisation of important landscape conditions and the debris carried by the fast flowing water that made this flood so devastating and unpredictable.

Here, we take a process-based impact perspective and systematically ask, which were the specific roles of non-hydraulic but geomorphic dynamics that implemented the damage, caused flood non-linearities and amplified the landscape deterioration. We combine insights from field mapping campaigns during, right after and within the relaxation phase of the flood with high resolution geophysical and LiDAR surveys to discuss the role of hillslopes, vegetation, fluvial sediment mobilisation and the legacy of anthropogenic landscape reorganisation. We conclude that some of these elements emerged as the flood event evolved, causing either transient effects or persistent landscape features, thus modifying the response of the landscape to future events, also to less intense precipitation events.

Our findings not only support more tailored recovery efforts for the flood affected Eifel catchments, but should also inform landscape development trajectories and potentially crucial factors in other Central European regions.

How to cite: Bell, R., Dietze, M., Thieken, A., Cook, K., Andermann, C., Beer, A., Vela, A. L., Ries, J. B., Brell, M., Eltner, A., Roessner, S., Schrott, L., Iserloh, T., Seeger, M., and Öztürk, U.: More than just fast flowing water: the landscape impact of the July 2021 west Germany flood, EGU General Assembly 2022, Vienna, Austria, 23–27 May 2022, EGU22-11641, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu22-11641, 2022.