A sort ofAn international research team led by the University of Frankfurt drew attention to the danger of underestimated threats after floods. Scientists have assembled a number of studies describing the risk of environmental damage caused by pollutants blown off the riverbed.
According to researchers, heavy metals, dioxins, and dioxin-like compounds can be found in the sediments as “chemical time bombs.” They may be distributed in flooded areas, polluting arable crops, grazing animals and people. This danger first exists in industrial areas in Europe, North America, and Asia, where the high flow of water may also disturb old sediments.
According to Henner Hollert, Professor of Environmental Toxicology at Goethe University, there is almost no research on the economic consequences of this problem in Germany and Europe. “We now need comprehensive river management, which not only considers the immediate dangers to people, animals and buildings, but also the long-term consequences of contaminated riverbed sites,” Hollert said. “For example, we absolutely must check the rivers of the agricultural floodplains for specific pollutants, lest they end up on our plates in the form of meat and dairy products.”
Biologists, ecologists, economists and geoscientists will also study the consequences of floods in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia in the new research cluster “RobustNature” at the University of Frankfurt. The main research focus is on how society responds to natural changes caused by climate change and species extinction.
