The disastrous floods in the Elbe and Danube basin in summer 2002, acted as a wake-up call for the National Authorities as well as the European Commission to investigate new strategies for flood prevention and protection, with focus on co-ordinated actions among countries sharing the same river basin. Shortly after the 2002 floods, the European Commission announced in the communication COM(2002)-481 the development of a European Flood Awareness System (EFAS) (http://www.efas.eu). Since then, Europe has been hit by several major flood disasters such as the Elbe and Danube floods in 2006 and the Central European floods in 2010 affecting mostly Poland but also the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary and Slovakia.