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The floods that the Czech Republic has experienced in recent years were mostly of the 50 to 100 year occurrence rate. Especially between 1997 and 2002, the Czech Republic suffered five major floods and two of them, the floods of 1997 and 2002, were of catastrophic magnitude and brought devastating effects to large land area.

Flooding in Dresden in August 2002 occurred in four stages caused by a sequence of two strong Adria depths within two weeks (Korndörfer 2003a). The first depth with intensive precipitation in South Bohemia in August 4 to 6 was followed by the depth whirl “ILSE” hitting the Vltava basin again and causing extreme rain fall in the eastern Ore Mountains close to Dresden. August 12, we registered 140 to 180 mm rain within 16 hours in Dresden. At this time, the water level of the Elbe River started to rise significantly because of the run off from Moldavia basin due to the precipitation there at the beginning of the month.

Floods in Belarus are caused by spring snowmelt or heavy rains in summer and autumn. Approximately 6.8% of the total area of the country (14.1 thousand km) is periodically flooded with 1-10% repetition frequency (Taratunin 2001). The duration of floods vary between 30-120 days and depends on hydro-meteorological factors, as well as the river size, morphological peculiarities of the valley and the form of the riverbed.

Experience of recent years indicates frequent occurrence of large and extreme floods in many parts of the world, including Europe (Marsalek 2000). One region, which suffers from flood damages on a regular basis, is the transboundary area of the Crisul Alb and Crisul Negro rivers flowing from Romania into Hungary, where they are known as Kőrős rivers. Floods in this area typically start in the mountainous terrain of the upper parts of the basin in Romania and propagate to the plains in Hungary. Recent floods in this area include the two spring 2000 floods, which caused on the Romanian territory damages of more than $US 20 million (Brakenridge et al. 2001). These losses included damages to houses, roads and railways, bridges, hydraulic structures, loss of domestic animals, and business losses. On the Hungarian territory, a particularly notable flood occurred in the summer of 1980, with total losses of $US 15 million, including destruction of farmhouses and large losses in agriculture (Brakenridge et al. 2001).

Romania is a country that suffered quite often flooding, especially in the last decade, when they were more frequent. Practically, there were years when almost during all months flooding occurred, either in small basins, with torrential character, or at a zonal or basin scale. These floods provoked very important damages that strongly affected the population and various social and economic relevant objectives. There were even losses of human lives registered. The economic consequences of these floods are hard to be compensated in the present context of economic development of Romania.

Presentations showed various approaches to flood modelling. Flood hazard are assessed from observed data and modelling. Surrogate observations should be approached with caution. The importance of flood hazard determination is increasing, because of changing climate, conflicting demands of water management, and continuing expansion of urban areas (human settlements). Further advances in the modelling of flood protection are recommended and should consider water storage in headwaters. Moreover, the role of groundwater should be further examined.