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Summer

2019

How a Catastrophic Flood of the Gürbe River Triggered the Rethinking of Local Flood Protection

Published
2019-08-17

Abstract

The Gürbe Valley, located south of Bern, is very prone to floods due to hydrological and geological conditions. In the mid-nineteenth century, the lower course of the Gürbe River was channelized and the upper reach was consolidated by a large torrent-control structure. Even though these measures ameliorated the situation, landslides and floods continued to cause damage. The hydraulic structures were therefore continuously expanded. In the second half of the twentieth century, flood-protection philosophy began to change, but the new principles—renaturation and passive measures instead of hard engineering—were only (partly) realized after the catastrophic flood of 1990.