Professor reveals solutions to flooding

With such a drastic toll taken on both the people and the layout of the land in Germany's worst natural disaster ever, new steps were taken in water management and the construction and upkeep of hydraulic structures, which is exactly what visiting professor Robert Jüpner discussed in front of a small audience at Ballantine Hall Monday.\nJüpner is a professor of hydraulic engineering at the department of water management and director of the Institute for Water Management and Ecotechnology at the Magdeburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany.\nSurprisingly, Jüpner said some solutions to avoiding such future flooding problems are quite simple.\n"Flood disasters are natural events and can be expected," he said. "The reason people don't realize this is because the cycle of these floods is often more than a lifetime."\nWith increased emphasis on globalization, those in the audience were impressed with the understanding they gained of how another country copes with a problem such as flooding.\n"I didn't know much about the topic beforehand, but it was interesting to see how another country deals with disaster," sophomore Eric Smith said.\nJüpner also said that more people need to realize the risk associated with living in flood plains and that the protection offered by technical measures such as dykes is not absolute. \nHis final point of advice was for modern society to be more prepared for future catastrophes.\n"We have to expect these natural disasters in the future," Jüpner said. "There are some very serious theories that more conditions such as extreme droughts and floods (are on the way)."\nEven those in the country at the time of the flood weren't familiar with some of the information Jüpner presented.\n"I was in Germany at the time when the flooding was going on, but I had only seen some coverage on TV," sophomore Phil Johnson said. "It was a pretty interesting lecture."\nSince the Elbe flood more than two years ago, Germany, in cooperation with their neighbors in the Czech Republic, have come up with several new measures to prepare for the next major flood, such as an improved forecasting system, and better flood plain management and spatial planning.\n"What we see from history is that soon after a flood or other natural disaster we see cooperation between countries to have systems and give forecasts, but the process is going slowly," Jüpner said.\n- Contact campus editor Chris Freiberg at wfreiber@indiana.edu .