Sustainable, Decentralized Flood Protection and Thermal Use

Dear Colleagues,

Due to the effects of the progressing global climate change even on a regional and local scale and extensive changes in land use, towards constant increasing land consumption, increased flooding events are expected in the short and also long term and will cause substantial economic damage. Areas will also be affected that have been spared from these events until now.

An accumulation of such devastating flood events is expectable in the next years as on the one hand land use pressures have intensified and will be intensifying in the future as well. On the other hand, climatic conditions are supposed to be changing so that intense rain events will increase in terms of intensity, frequency, and variability. Therefore, sustainable and effective solutions have to be developed. Decentralized and local-based flood protection is one of the sustainable approaches and key technologies for reducing surface runoff and retaining water locally. Due to increasing land use pressure decentralized flood protection areas should have further sustainable ways of utilization. Shallow geothermal use for heating and cooling is one sustainable extension for decentralized flood protecting areas due to the well-known local pedological and vegetation conditions and close distance to infrastructure. The combination of these two technologies will help to develop comprehensive decentralized sustainable approaches dealing with the upcoming effects of progressing global climate change.

Dr. David Bertermann
Guest Editor

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