The Act for the Further Improvement of Flood Protection and for the Simplification of Flood Protection Procedures (Flood Protection Act II) was passed by the Bundestag on 30 June 2017.

The Article Law (Federal Law Gazette Part I 2017 No. 44, 05.07.2017, p. 2193) mainly amends the WHG (Article 1), but also the BauGB (Article 2) and the BNatSchG (Article 3).

The purpose of the Flood Protection Act II was to simplify planning for flood protection facilities and their approval and construction, and to accelerate legal action against such facilities. The Federal Government wanted to strengthen flood protection in so-called flood risk areas, i.e. areas that could be flooded in the event of a dike breach.

In these areas, the municipalities can now stipulate requirements for flood-adapted construction in the development plan in order to prevent future damage, e.g. higher door thresholds, securing of technical facilities. For this purpose, the legal possibilities of the municipalities have been extended in the building code.

For landscape architects, the Flood Protection Act contains some professionally interesting modifications. For example, the prohibition of depositing objects in flood plains that could obstruct the flow of water can be relevant for various construction projects in the landscape.

In § 78d WHG, flood control areas are introduced; their technical and methodological intersections with landscape or preparatory urban land use planning are obvious. In § 16 BNatSchG, a clarification is made on the relationship between compensation and flood protection measures.

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