Collect driftwood
Step by step, the canton of Zurich is improving protection against flooding on the Sihl, Lake Zurich and the Limmat.
More than ten years ago, the city of Zurich narrowly escaped a medium-sized natural disaster: It wouldn't have taken much for the Sihl to overflow its banks and cause major damage to Zurich's city center; the main train station would also have been heavily "watered". Once again, we were lucky, all the more so because the economic metropolis is not a village. Due to the large infrastructure, a high material value is concentrated here, comparable to a bulging safe. This is also the reason why the city of Zurich has one of the greatest flood risks in Switzerland. In an emergency, an extreme flood in the Limmat city could cause damage of up to 5.5 billion Swiss francs, according to estimates.
In the meantime, lessons have been learned and precautions have been taken to prevent worse things from happening in the future. For example, as a first structural measure, the Zurich Department of Public Works has just officially put into operation a 450-meter-long floodwater retention structure on the Sihl River above Langnau am Albis.
More on the subject of flood safety can be found in issue 3 of the trade journal SecurityForum to read.
