Germany’s bodies of water have seen better days, with just 6.6 per cent of rivers and streams currently in what EU guidelines define as a “good ecological condition”.

In response to a parliamentary request for information from the Green Party, the government reported this week that, in 93 per cent of Germany’s rivers and streams, the proliferation of wildlife is below expected levels, while 79 per cent of them have been “significantly or completely changed” in structure by human intervention.

Though water quality has improved in general, and beavers and salmon have returned to German waters, streams and floodplains remain endangered habitats, said the environment ministry.

“Both the Federal Government and individual state authorities should do more to protect Germany’s free-flowing rivers,” said Steffi Lemke, the Green Party’s spokesperson on conservation, adding that the river was in “acute danger” as an ecosystem.

According to the Federal Office for the Environment, the biggest threat to rivers and streams comes from agriculture, and the effect of fertilisation and irrigation practices.

The environmental organisation WWF has demanded “more money, more personnel, and more political will” in order to combat the problems, and has criticised the European Commission’s ongoing review of the EU Water Framework Directive.

“The situation in Germany is now concerning, bordering on critical,” said a WWF spokesperson. </s> In Germany, Europe's biggest economy, farmers are fearful at the start of the growing season following below-average rainfall earlier this year - bad news after last year's drought.

[BERLIN] Weather experts warn of drought in Europe over its summer as firefighters tackled forest fires on Thursday, and farmers fretted over wilting crops and a repeat of 2018's arid conditions.

In Germany, Europe's biggest economy, farmers are fearful at the start of the growing season following below-average rainfall earlier this year - bad news after last year's drought.

Unless significant rain falls in May, experts say there is little chance of decent crops.

"If the dry weather continues in the coming months, the drought of 2018 could be repeated or even exceeded," warned Udo Busch, head of the German weather service's agricultural section.

A lack of rain has turned some forests into potential tinderboxes.

Over the past few days, German firefighters have tackled blazing forest fires in the states of Hessen, Brandenburg and Thuringia.

A senior fire chief has even asked authorities, including the army, to lend helicopters in order to "react adequately".

Scandinavia has also been hit, with Swedish firefighters currently tackling 10 to 15 forest fires a day after precious little rain this month.

The most serious blaze broke out over 300 hectares in the southern district of Hassleholm, forcing 49 people to be evacuated.

Last year nearly 25,000 hectares of land was ravaged by fires in Sweden.

In neighbouring Norway, a forest fire narrowly missed the community of Sokndal, but around 70 firefighters were still extinguishing flames on Thursday over an area of 750 hectares.

Phil Hogan, the European Union's agriculture commissioner, on Thursday promised farmers and rural communities in member states will get EU support should drought strike again.

In the German state of Brandenburg, surrounding Berlin, barren fields resemble desert landscapes.

There are fears of a repeat of last year's poor harvest, when crops were down between 30 to 80 per cent, threatening the livelihoods of many German farmers.

Across Brandenburg's 780 farms, reported losses for 2018 topped 93 million euros (S$141.3 million) and the state had to provide 72 million euros in aid.

Rain is forecast for the coming days. But it is expected to be far insufficient for what is needed to mitigate a worrying situation.

"We sincerely hope for rain - the decisive month for us is May," said farmers' association spokesman Tino Erstling.

In neighbouring Austria, the first signs of drought have already appeared in the east and north, raising fears of another bleak harvest.

Rainfall is already down to just a quarter of the 10-year average in recent weeks.

Potato growers are demanding a relaxation of pesticide regulations to better control numbers of wireworm, which they say are flourishing because of drought.

"The current signs point to suffering for agriculture," said Hagelversicherung, a specialist insurance company.

The situation is even more shocking in the Czech Republic, where 99 per cent of the country has already been hit by drought over the last five weeks.

A third of the country is classed among the worst two drought categories on a six-level scale, according to the Intersucho (Interdrought) portal, which monitors drought in central Europe.

The drought has come a month earlier than last year.

In many Czech villages, the wells are already dry, forcing the population to find other ways to get water.

Forecasters predict rain this weekend which may help save some crops, but farmers remain sceptical.

Hardest hit will be the regions northwest of Prague, where hops crucial to the Czech beer industry are grown, and in the southeast, famous for its wine and grain.

A couple of windy days over the past weeks haven't helped as the wind has dried the top layer of soil.

The drought is also devastating Czech forests as it encourages breeding of the bark beetle with damage this year projected to top one billion euros.

The Czech Republic has been grappling with bark beetle infestation for several years and experts say the current situation is the worst in Czech history. </s> DETROIT (AP) — Michigan's attorney general in 2016 promised to investigate "without fear or favor" the scandal over Flint's lead-tainted drinking water and pledged that state regulators would be locked up for fudging data and misleading the public.

Yet three years later, no one is behind bars. Instead, seven of 15 defendants have pleaded no contest to misdemeanors, some as minor as disrupting a public meeting. Their records eventually will be scrubbed clean.

That has angered some people in Flint who believe key players who could have prevented the lead disaster are getting off easy. Four of five people at the state Department of Environmental Quality who were on the front line of the crisis have struck deals. The remaining cases mostly center on a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires' disease and early disastrous decisions to use water from the Flint River.

"I'm furious – absolutely furious," said LeeAnne Walters, a mother of four who is credited with exposing the lead contamination. "It's a slap in the face to every victim in the city of Flint."

Walters, 40, said she was repeatedly brushed off by the Department of Environmental Quality, known as DEQ, even as she confronted officials with bottles of brown water. She testified in Congress after then-Gov. Rick Snyder in 2015 finally acknowledged the lead mess, and she later was honored with an international prize for grassroots environmental activism.

"Instead of people being held accountable, they're getting a free pass," Walters said. "The fact remains there wouldn't have been a problem with the lead and the legionella if the water had been treated properly, if MDEQ would have done their job."

Flint was one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in U.S. history. While waiting for a new pipeline to bring water from Lake Huron, the majority-black city of 100,000 pulled water from a river in 2014-15 without treating it to reduce corrosive effects on old pipes. Lead infected the distribution system in Flint, where 41 percent of residents are classified by the government as living in poverty.

Due to poor finances, Flint was being run by financial managers appointed by the governor. The uproar over water quality reached a peak by fall 2015 when a doctor reported high levels of lead in children, which can cause brain damage. The water no longer comes from the river and has significantly improved, but some residents are so distrustful that they continue to use bottled water. </s> FLINT, Mich. - Michigan’s attorney general in 2016 promised to investigate “without fear or favor” the scandal over Flint’s lead-tainted drinking water and pledged that state regulators would be locked up for fudging data and misleading the public.

Yet three years later, no one is behind bars. Instead, seven of 15 defendants have pleaded no contest to misdemeanors, some as minor as disrupting a public meeting. Their records eventually will be scrubbed clean.

That has angered some people in Flint who believe key players who could have prevented the lead disaster are getting off easy. Four of five people at the state Department of Environmental Quality who were on the front line of the crisis have struck deals. The remaining cases mostly center on a deadly outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease and early disastrous decisions to use water from the Flint River.

“I’m furious — absolutely furious,” said LeeAnne Walters, a mother of four who is credited with exposing the lead contamination. “It’s a slap in the face to every victim in the city of Flint.”

Walters, 40, said she was repeatedly brushed off by the Department of Environmental Quality, known as DEQ, even as she confronted officials with bottles of brown water. She testified in Congress after then-Gov. Rick Snyder in 2015 finally acknowledged the lead mess, and she later was honored with an international prize for grassroots environmental activism.

“Instead of people being held accountable, they’re getting a free pass,” Walters said. “The fact remains there wouldn’t have been a problem with the lead and the legionella if the water had been treated properly, if MDEQ would have done their job.”

Flint was one of the worst man-made environmental disasters in U.S. history. While waiting for a new pipeline to bring water from Lake Huron, the majority-black city of 100,000 pulled water from a river in 2014-15 without treating it to reduce corrosive effects on old pipes. Lead infected the distribution system in Flint, where 41 percent of residents are classified by the government as living in poverty.

Due to poor finances, Flint was being run by financial managers appointed by the governor. The uproar over water quality reached a peak by fall 2015 when a doctor reported high levels of lead in children, which can cause brain damage. The water no longer comes from the river and has significantly improved, but some residents are so distrusful that they continue to use bottled water.

Liane Shekter Smith, who was fired as head of Michigan’s drinking water office, was charged with misconduct in office and neglect of duty. Special prosecutor Todd Flood later put her on notice that he would pursue an involuntary manslaughter charge, arguing that she could have shut down the Flint water plant and reduced the threat of legionella bacteria, which causes Legionnaires’.

But charges were dropped on Jan. 7 in exchange for a no-contest plea to an obscure misdemeanor that will not result in any jail time: disturbance of a lawful meeting. She had declined to accept a report about water quality from Walters and others. Two other key agency employees, Michael Prysby and Stephen Busch, made deals on Dec. 26. All three will have their records erased if they cooperate with Flood.

Shekter Smith wanted “to put some closure on this matter,” attorney Brian Morley said of her plea agreement. “Criminal charges weren’t warranted.”

State Sen. Jim Ananich of Flint, who runs his water through a filter, said he’s listened to frustrated residents.

“At the beginning there was a feeling of good, someone is going to be held accountable. Now people don’t believe anyone is going to be held accountable,” he said.

The outcome so far is different than the dramatic scene in 2016 when Attorney General Bill Schuette, a Republican who was poised to run for governor, traveled to Flint to announce felony charges against Prysby, a DEQ engineer, and Busch, a DEQ regional supervisor.

“Mr. Busch and Mr. Prysby misled federal and local authorities, regulatory officials, and failed to provide safe and clean water to families of Flint,” Schuette declared at that time. “When we prove these allegations — and we will — Mr. Busch and Mr. Prysby will be facing five years in prison for this count alone.”

Andy Arena, a Flint water investigator and former head of the FBI in Detroit, believes the plea deals are appropriate.

“There are culpable folks out there that we need to get to,” he said. “This is how it works: You cut deals with certain people to move the case up the line. I believe these people have some information that could significantly assist in our ongoing investigation.”

Schuette, who lost the governor’s race and is out of public office, said: “I stand with Andy,” referring to Arena. Flood declined to comment on his strategy.

The new attorney general, Dana Nessel, has asked a Detroit-area prosecutor to review the remaining cases , including involuntary manslaughter charges against Nick Lyon, the former head of the Michigan health department who has been ordered to trial.

Lyon is accused of failing to alert the public in a timely manner about the Legionnaires’ outbreak, which has been linked to foul water and at least 12 deaths. Dr. Eden Wells, who was Michigan’s chief medical executive, also is facing an involuntary manslaughter trial, although both cases are tied up in appeals by aggressive defense teams.

Gerald Ambrose and Darnell Earley, who were state-appointed emergency managers when Flint was using river water, are also charged. They’re accused of being obsessed with saving money instead of protecting residents. All have pleaded not guilty.

Copyright 2019 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. </s> Paris, France is flooding again. The River Seine has risen over its banks and streets are covered with slowing moving yellowish water. The Louvre is building sandbag barriers to protect its statuary.

There is talk, as always, that the culprit is the dreaded modern boogeyman — Climate Change.

As our introductory image states, Paris is not just flooding, it is flooding again, and again, and again, and again.

“Why does the Seine, famous for its bridges, flood at all?

As one of France’s major commercial waterways, the river is closely monitored so it can accommodate a constant procession of barges and other commercial vessels. The river begins in Burgundy, in east-central France, and meanders 485 miles westward until it reaches its mouth, near the port city of Le Havre.

Upstream from Paris, four large dams control the flow of the Seine and three of its major tributaries: the Aube, the Marne and the Yonne. According to Charles Perrin, a hydrologist at the National Research Institute of Science and Technology for Environment and Agriculture, in late spring the dams start stocking large reserves of water that can be released in the drier summer months.

Dams and locks normally keep the water level consistent, particularly in the Paris region, where the Seine’s traffic is especially heavy, in part because of tourist and other recreational vessels. If the water level drops too far, the barges could scrape the riverbed and get damaged. If it gets too high, vessels cannot pass under the city’s lowest bridges.”

Last spring “The dams were already at 95 percent capacity when heavy rains started in late May, so their ability to take in the excess water was limited.” So, Paris flooded — again.

“Public authorities said they expected the Seine to crest on Sunday at up to six meters, or about 19.6 feet. In the floods of June 2016, which killed four people in France, it peaked at 20 feet.”

“Although some experts said it was hard to determine whether global warming was behind the current flood, others warned that a worrying pattern was emerging.

“Because of climate change, we can expect floods in the Seine basin to be at least as frequent as they are right now,” said Florence Habets, a senior researcher at the C.N.R.S., France’s national center for scientific research. “No matter what we say, the more we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, the more we reduce our impact on droughts and floods.”

The French scientist tells us that “Because of climate change…” the flooding frequency will remain the same. Brillant!

What is the flooding frequency? Every recent flood is compared to the great flood of 1910, “in 1910, a January deluge turned Paris into Venice for a week — river levels rose nearly 30 feet above normal — causing roughly $1.5 billion worth of damage, in today’s terms. … Topographically, Paris is a basin, with hills in Montmartre and Montparnasse rising in the north and south of the city, respectively. When it comes to flooding, that means big trouble for anyone who lives in the city center, which in 1910 was not so different than it is today” [source]. “A very severe period of high water in January 1910 resulted in extensive flooding throughout the city. The Seine again rose to threatening levels in 1924, 1955, 1982, 1999–2000, June 2016, and January 2018.” [source]

The New York Times carried the story of the 1910 Paris flood — read the full original report on the front page of January 27, 1920.

This “worrying pattern” really began in the 17th Century with major Paris floods being recorded in 1649, 1651, 1658, 1690, 1711, 1732, 1740, 1779, 1795, 1802, 1830, 1836, 1879-80, 1882-83, 1886…..you get the idea here.

What’s the deal here? Again, as with Bangladesh: GEOGRAPHY.

There we have it. Four rivers flow into one another and converge just before Paris: The Seine itself, the Aube, The Yonne, and the Marne.

Google Earth reveals that the Seine is no longer a river but a channeled and closely controlled canal, complete with flood control devices and locks for the river traffic.

We see once more that the efforts to control great rivers and put them solely to our own purposes leads to unforeseen, or at least, unacknowledged, problems. The upriver dams, used to store water against the dryer summers, to maintain river levels appropriate for shipping, are allowed to fill in the Spring, find themselves nearly full — and if late summer rains come, there is nowhere to store the resultant excessive river flow — floods start upstream and spread down the river to Paris. We see this same pattern with the great rivers of the American Midwest — the Mississippi and the Missouri.

Of course, the Europeans have known all about this situation for years and years, and publish reports and recommendations such as OECD Reviews of Risk Management “Policies Seine Basin, Île-de-France: Resilience to Major Floods”.

Still, Paris floods and the blame gets shifted to anything but the real cause — inadequate action to remedy the known problems of Seine River managenment.

Remember our expert Climate Science opinion: “Because of climate change, we can expect floods in the Seine basin to be at least as frequent as they are right now,”

Love to read and respond to your on-topic comments.

Paris floods — that’s weather — so it must be Climate Change.

If you want me to respond specifically to a question or comment, address it to “Kip…” so I am sure to see it. </s> BERLIN (Reuters) - Hamburg said on Wednesday it had begun putting up signs to enforce what will be the first ban on older diesel vehicles from streets in a major German city, after a court ruled in February that cities were entitled to impose such bans.

Hamburg’s environmental authorities said on Wednesday they had put up around 100 signs this week announcing the ban in two streets and offering directions for alternative routes.

German cities are under pressure to meet legal clean air targets to reduce illness caused by emissions. European car companies have invested heavily in diesel, which produces less of the carbon that causes global warming than gasoline engines, but more of other pollutants blamed for health problems.

The prospect that cities could ban dirtier diesel vehicles has wide implications for the future of Europe’s car industry.

Hamburg is still waiting to find out from the court whether it will be allowed to apply the ban to all cars with engines that fail to meet the 2014 “Euro 6” standard, or only to the far smaller number that fail to meet the 2009 “Euro 5” standard.

“We expect to put the driving ban into effect in May. Therefore, it’s necessary to receive a written statement of the ruling from the administrative court in Leipzig,” said Bjoern Marzahn, Hamburg environment authority spokesman.

Environmentalists say the measures in Hamburg do not go far enough because they target only selected streets where air monitoring stations are in place. They worry that diversions will only prompt car owners to drive longer distances.

“There are only four monitoring stations in Hamburg and it is evaluated according to their results, although the European Union limits are breached in many parts of the city,” Paul Schmid, spokesman for the Environment and Nature Conservation Association (BUND) in Hamburg, said.

The court has promised a final statement by the end of this week, Marzahn said, adding that no fines will be levied during an initial phase of the ban, allowing drivers to get used to it.

The city had considered other alternatives to improve air quality, such as deploying electric buses, but concluded that a partial diesel ban would be the most effective solution.

“We as environment authorities are responsible for air purity and it’s our responsibility to make sure inhabitants don’t get sick (because of pollution),” Marzahn said. “I believe there is sympathy for this from car drivers.” </s> Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Lokoja, where the Niger and Benue rivers meet

Heavy seasonal rains are a regular feature of life in Nigeria and towns close to the country's main rivers are particularly vulnerable.

This year floods have killed almost 200 people with many thousands displaced.

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) say these figures are likely to rise as the full impact becomes clear.

A state of emergency has been declared in four of the worst-hit states:

Niger

Kogi

Anambra

Delta

President Muhammadu Buhari has pledged $8.2m (£6.2m) for relief efforts. The NEMA has activated five local operation centres to coordinate emergency responses.

Flooding regularly wreaks havoc in Nigeria:

In 2017, floods affected 250,000 people in the eastern-central region

In 2016, 92,000 were displaced and 38 died

In 2015, more than 100,000 were displaced, with 53 deaths

In 2012, devastating flooding forced two million Nigerians from their homes and 363 died, according to authorities

"Floods have become a perennial challenge with increasing intensity each year, leaving colossal losses and trauma," the Nigerian Meteorological Agency says.

So why does Nigeria keep flooding, and is it getting worse?

Affected areas

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Flooding near Kaduna River

Nigeria hosts two of West Africa's great rivers:

the Niger which enters the country from the north-west

the Benue, which flows into Nigeria from its eastern neighbour Cameroon

These two immense waterways meet in central Nigeria and then flow south as a single river on to the Atlantic Ocean.

Much, though by no means all, of Nigeria's flooding occurs along these two rivers as their banks overflow in the rainy season.

In 2012, hundreds of thousands of acres of land were flooded in Nigeria when the Benue and Niger over-spilled.

That year, the Niger River reached a record-high level of 12.84m (42ft).

In 2018, levels reached 11.06m, with fears that the heavy rain, expected to continue through October this year, could lead it to approach similar heights.

There has also been extensive damage to farmlands, according ACAPS, a humanitarian data-analysis organisation, which is the mainstay of most livelihoods in the affected regions.

Flooding is also caused by:

the tidal movements of coastal waters, such as in the Delta region of the south-east

saturated drainage systems, such as in the country's largest city, Lagos, in the south-west

Are Nigeria's rains causing the floods?

Heavy rainfall has certainly increased the likelihood of rivers overflowing and flash floods.

And there's evidence to suggest increasing rainfall over time.

Data from the Nigerian Meteorological Agency from 1981-2017, analysing 13 affected locations, reveals a rising trend in annual rainfall, which it says is likely to be a significant factor responsible for floods.

But it's not just rain falling in Nigeria itself.

Heavy precipitation upstream on the Benue and Niger rivers - in Cameroon, Mali and the country of Niger - contributes large volumes of water to Nigeria's river system, according to Zahrah Musa at the IHE Delft Institute for Water Education.

Troublesome dams

Another factor in Nigeria's flood problem is dams.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption Kainji dam

Nigeria's three main electricity-generating dams, at Kainji and Jebba on the Niger river and the Shiroro dam on the Kaduna River, "have become bloated" by the heavy rains and excess water has had to be released downstream over the past month, says Hussaini Ibrahim, of the Niger State Emergency Management Agency (NSEMA).

The uncompleted Zungeru dam, in Niger state, which is part-funded by the Chinese government, is also believed to be affecting areas once free from flooding.

On the Benue River, the main concern is the Lagdo Dam, in neighbouring Cameroon, which has previously caused the river to swell by releasing water.

In 2012, water flowing in from the Lagdo dam was blamed for 30 deaths in Nigeria.

The Cameroonian authorities have yet to allow water to pour out from Lagdo during the current rainy season - but there are concerns in Nigeria that this might happen.

Poor town planning

Nigeria's population is expanding rapidly, currently estimated at 186 million, and the lack of proper town planning can make flooding worse in urban areas.

"Town planning in Nigeria is very weak," says Aliyu Salisu Barau, of Bayero University. "These areas are affected by a lack of drainage networks."

The city of Lokoja, for example, at the meeting-point of Benue and Niger rivers, is particularly prone to flooding.

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A man in a town near Lokoja, a heavily flooded area

"If you go to Lokoja, you see massive developments along the Niger River," says Mr Barau.

These developments are almost always unregulated, with people building on floodplains, reducing the surface areas for water to travel, and without constructing drainage systems.

Because of the unregulated nature of town planning, there's also limited information on how much land has been built on and therefore little assessment of the impact.

In the city of Makurdi, for example, on the Benue river, Mr Barau says, "one can see all forms of informal activities" along the river bank.

New land developments along the Niger River has more than doubled in Nassarwa and Kogi States, according to estimates.

The dumping of waste in the streets can also prevent the steady flow of water and put pressure on the few urban drainage systems.

It's also common, after the floods, for people to come back and start rebuilding in the same vulnerable areas.

Hussaini Ibrahim, of the NSEMA, also points the finger at deforestation, which he says is happening across Nigeria.

It's a resource that people use for fuel or to sell - but trees play an important role in storing rain-waters.

Future floods

If the impact of flooding is to be reduced in the future, the consequences of rapid urbanisation and poor urban planning need to be addressed.

And greater co-operation with Nigeria's neighbours in the control of river levels will need to be achieved in order to avoid dangerous surges in water levels during the periods of heavy rain.

The wider issue of the increasing rainfall levels identified by the Nigerian Meteorological Agency is one that some in Nigeria have attributed to climate change.

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Follow us on Twitter </s> All we can do is put up scaffolding to make a pontoon and hope that the water doesn’t come up much higher,” Diane Bourlier, a 63-year-old who lives on a houseboat in Paris, said as she looked anxiously out at the rising river.

Some experts suggest climate change is likely to make such events more frequent. And an international body chose this week to publish a study arguing that Paris and the rest of the Seine basin needed greater protection against the risk of a catastrophic flood.

Thirteen of France’s 96 administrative departments had flood alerts as of Friday, in what the monitoring body Météo-France says is the country’s wettest winter since 1959.

The Seine River overflowed its banks again in Paris and several nearby cities this week, a mere 18 months after reaching its highest level since 1982.

Public authorities said they expected the Seine to crest Saturday morning at up to 6 metres. In the floods of June 2016, which killed four people in France, it peaked at 6 metres.

In Paris, where the Seine rose above 5.5 metres Friday, river traffic has been interrupted and roads along the river banks remained closed. A central portion of the RER C train line has been shut until the end of the month, and the government activated a plan that could let it relocate work from some ministries if the situation worsens.

Bourlier was among the lucky ones: As of Thursday night, 400 people had been evacuated from homes in the Paris region, and a thousand faced power cuts, according to the police prefecture. Rivers have swelled across the country, forcing evacuations and the closing of roads and infrastructure.

During those floods, several monuments had to be closed, including the Louvre Museum, where artworks had to be evacuated. All museums remained open this week, although the Louvre shut the lower level of its department of Islamic Arts. The city authorities have also called on people to stay away from the river banks.

Although some experts said it was hard to determine whether global warming was behind the current flood, others warned that a worrying pattern was emerging.

“Because of climate change, we can expect floods in the Seine basin to be at least as frequent as they are right now,” said Florence Habets, a senior researcher at the CNRS, France’s national centre for scientific research. “No matter what we say, the more we reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, the more we reduce our impact on droughts and floods.”

The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, a left-wing politician who has been at the forefront of the fight against climate change, was also quick to mention long-term challenges.

“Beyond the emergency, this flooding phenomenon, which is more and more recurrent in Paris, reminds us how important it is for our city to adapt to climate change,” she said in a tweet.

Deputy Mayor Colombe Brossel said in a phone interview that although the situation was serious, the floods would have few concrete consequences in Paris.

They were certainly far less severe than some the city endured during the past century. In 1910, the Seine rose above 8.5 metres, giving Paris “the aspect of a beleaguered place,” according to a New York Times report of the time.

Although local officials said they were now prepared to face similar conditions, experts from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimated that such a catastrophe could affect 5 million people and cost up to 30 billion euros (about $37 billion).

In a study published Tuesday, they noted that though Paris had implemented further flood prevention policies since 2014, the authorities’ efforts remained limited compared with the risks the city faced.

“Examples from the reconstruction of a resilient New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, or New York after Sandy, could inspire Paris to build up its own resilience before disaster hits,” they wrote.

Heavy rains also flooded parts of eastern and northwestern France this week, blocking roads and inundating households that had already been affected by the torrential rains of 2016.

One of the most affected areas was the town of Villeneuve-St.-Georges, 16 kilometres south of Paris, where the military had to help residents evacuate their homes and propel themselves on dinghies through streets flooded with brownish water and waste.

“For some people, this is the second time in 18 months that they have been victims of floods,” Alexandre Boyer, a local councilman, said. “It’s beginning to get a little too much.” </s> Researchers at The Ocean Cleanup—a Dutch foundation developing new technologies for ridding the oceans of plastic—say rivers carry an estimated 1.15-2.41 million tonnes of plastic into the sea every year, an amount that need between 48,000 to over 100,000 dump trucks to carry it away.

Their latest study, published in Nature Communications journal Wednesday, added that two-thirds of the pollution comes from the 20 most polluting rivers, the overwhelming majority in Asia with the Yangtze River in China topping the list.

The Yangtze, the world's third-longest river, "is the largest contributing catchment", dumping some 330,000 tonnes of plastic into the East China Sea.

This is followed by the Ganges River in India and a combination of the Xi, Dong and Zhujiang Rivers in China as well as four Indonesian rivers: the Brantas, Solo, Serayu and Progo.

The rest of the world shared the remaining 14 percent of plastic pollution via rivers, The Ocean Cleanup researchers said.

"Most of this river plastic input is coming from Asia, which emphasises the need to focus on monitoring and mitigation efforts in Asian countries with rapid economic development and poor waste management," they said.

The researchers however issued a disclaimer saying "there is very little data to document these assumptions and thoroughly verify the validity of our model."

"Yet, the relatively high concentrations of ocean plastic found at the surface of the North Pacific Ocean where buoyant plastics originating from Asia can accumulate, suggest that our assumptions are plausible," they said.

The study comes against the backdrop of the UN's first ocean conference opening in Miami on Monday, where plastic pollution was singled out as particularly harmful.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres cited a recent study that showed plastic could outweigh fish in 2050 if nothing is done.

Every year, more than eight million tons of plastic ends up in the ocean, costing at least $8 billion (7.1 billion euros) in damage to marine ecosystems and killing an estimated one million sea birds, 100,000 sea mammals and untold numbers of fish.

Explore further: Plastic pollution builds up in Arctic waters: study

More information: Laurent C. M. Lebreton et al. River plastic emissions to the world's oceans, Nature Communications (2017). DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15611
The WWF describes Germany's rivers as being in a state "bordering on critical" after it emerges more than 90% do not meet European Union standards for cleanliness and ecological quality.