The Racibórz Dolny flood protection reservoir – which is being built with support from European Union co-financing – aims to provide protection from flooding by the River Oder for 1.3 million inhabitants in the most important settlements in the Śląskie, Dolnośląskie and Opolskie regions of southern and south-western Poland. The reservoir has a surface area of 24 km² and a storage capacity of 185 million m³.
- 28 July 2017
Racibórz Dolny has a front embankment dam which stretches for 4 km at a maximum height of 11.1 m, a left embankment 9.6 km long and a right embankment 8.3 km in length. A sluice overflow structure situated within the front dam is divided into six spans, each of which is 12 m in diameter.
The reservoir’s inflow channel is 1.8 km long and 6 m deep, while the outflow channel covers 1 km. Safety control facilities on the front and side embankments monitor and measure vertical displacement in the substrate and the dam, capillary pressure and flow filtration.
A comprehensive flood protection programme
Construction of Racibórz Dolny has a total budget of over EUR 333 million, of which some EUR 76 million is being supplied from EU funds. It is one of a series of measures in a flood protection programme covering sections of the upper and middle Oder between the town of Racibórz and the city of Wrocław. With its high flood-water-retention capacity, Racibórz Dolny will reduce the size of the peak flood wave to 3100 m³ per second in the section above Wrocław, as well as lowering the possibility of additional flooding from the Eastern Neisse, one of the Oder’s main tributaries.
With a population of around 637 000, Wrocław is the largest city lying on the Oder and the fourth largest in Poland. Capital of the Dolnośląskie region, it has been hit hard in the past by flooding from the Oder, notably in 1997 and 2010. During the first instance, around a third of the city was covered by water causing huge socio-economic damage. In the latter, work on flood defences and preparation in the years after the 1997 flood mitigated the effects considerably.
A principal Central European waterway
Stretching 854 km, the Oder is one of Central Europe’s most important rivers and navigable for most of its length. Its source is in the Oderské vrchy mountain range in the Olomouc District of the Czech Republic’s Central Moravia region. The first 112 km of the river flow through the Czech Republic.
It then flows through Poland for 742 km, of which 187 km form the border between Poland and Germany. Its main branch empties into the Szczecin Lagoon, which is connected to the Bay of Pomerania, part of the Baltic Sea. As well as Śląskie, Dolnośląskie and Opolskie, the Oder flows through the Lubuskie and Zachodniopomorskie regions of Poland.
It is the second longest river in Poland after the Vistula. It drains a basin of 118 861 km², 106 056 km² of which are in Poland, 7217 km² in the Czech Republic and 5587 km² in Germany.
Total investment and EU funding
Total investment for the project “Racibórz Dolny Flood Protection Reservoir on the Odra River, Silesian Voivodeship (Polder)” is EUR 333 614 573, with the EU’s Cohesion Fund contributing EUR 76 051 375 through the “Infrastructure and Environment” Operational Programme for the 2014-2020 programming period.