The Elbe estuary is located in the North of Germany and encompasses three federal states being Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein and Lower Saxony. The Elbe estuary is the tidal-influenced section of the river Elbe and connects the metropolitan region of Hamburg with the North Sea. The river Elbe rises at a height of 1.386 m above sea level in Czechia and reaches its mouth in the North Sea. The catchment area is given as 148.268 km2.
This section of the Elbe estuary is one of the most important shipping routes of the Europe – Far East Route and Hamburg Port is one of the three major ports in Europe.
The Elbe estuary is the tidal influenced section of the river Elbe between the weir in Geesthacht (km 586) and Cuxhaven (km 728). The upstream flow of the river Elbe flows over the weir in the Elbe estuary. This section has a length of 141,8 km. The weir is the upper boundary of the incoming tidal wave and only in cases of storm surges or high upstream flow, the weir is activated. Continuous dike lines exist since the 13th century on both banks. The dike lines were completely redesigned and renewed because of the impacts of several floods (1962 and 1976).
Due to the storm surges in the North Sea, the flood defence structures (e.g. dikes) are exposed to high water levels, waves and wind along the Elbe estuary. This load is likely to increase in the future due to climate change (see KLIMZUG-NORD project). Consequently, the defence structures are exposed to a higher probability of failure like overtopping or overflow. Additionally, due to the heavy precipitation and the urbanisation of the hinterland risk of flooding of the hinterland is likely to increase. This forms a complex system- estuary-flood defence structures-hinterland, for which the appropriate strategies cannot be derived adhoc.
The focus is to develop a platform to be used by the responsible authorities for management of the Elbe estuary containing the technical (hydrodynamic and risk models and their integration) and social (governance approaches implemented through the LAAs) components. Collaboration with other work packages are as follows:
The project received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme for Research
Technological Development and Demonstration under Grant Agreement No 603663