Operations Research inFlood Protection Management

River floods are part of the natural hydrologic cycle and mayoccur several times per year, caused by heavy downpours andsnowmelt. However, in recent years, often attributed to globalwarming, an increasing number of extreme flood events couldbe observed in central Europe. Moreover, these events appear tohave more severe consequences due to higher flood peaks, butalso due to more intensive land utilization in areas close to riverbanks and former flood plains. For instance, estimations of thedamage done by the so-called »hundred-year flood« of 2002amounted to more than 9 billion euros [1] for Germany alone...