Five months have passed since heavy rain caused the Ahr to grow into a huge river over the tributaries into the valley, since the river swept away trees, bridges, cars and houses and flooded entire settlements. If you go downstream with the rail replacement service to Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, you can see along the road: uprooted trees, gutted houses, crumbled asphalt, the piled-up individual parts of a railway line, the cut and dented steel remains of a bridge. Other stone bridges break off after two or three arches over the water.
It is actually a coincidence, which results from the situation in Bad Neuenahr-Ahrweiler, that the “Institute for Qualifying Innovation Research and Consulting”, IQIB for short, is now involved in two projects dealing with reconstruction. The IQIB is a subsidiary of the German Aerospace Center (DLR). On the outside wall of the institute above the McDonald's there is still the word “European Academy”, that was a cooperation between the state of Rhineland-Palatinate and the DLR, from which the IQIB emerged. The water reached the parking lot in front of it.
The research institute spared the flood, but it did not leave it untouched. Instead of occupying two floors as before, the institute has withdrawn to a quarter of the area. At the entrance is now the reception of a doctor’s practice, and part of a clinic has been quartered on the upper floor since the water destroyed its premises. “It just happened because there was such a need for space,” says Michael Boronowsky. He studied computer science, did his doctorate on artificial intelligence and is now head of business development at IQIB. In his former office, from which you can see the vineyards directly, there are now consultation hours. Boronowsky has moved to the conference room. Moving boxes pile up in front of a partition.
Boronowsky has just come back from the internal start of the KAHR project.
The acronym stands for climate adaptation, floods and resilience.
It is a cooperation between various institutes and experts and is intended to scientifically accompany the reconstruction after the flood disaster in North Rhine-Westphalia and Rhineland-Palatinate.
It is now being funded by the Federal Ministry of Research.
The IQIB has the role of one of the project offices, the presence in the Ahr valley, so to speak.
The next flood is coming - only when?
What can science contribute to the reconstruction? What would make sense from the point of view of flood protection and sustainability often competes with the interest in quickly rebuilding the infrastructure and buildings as they were. Nobody can say when and where, but one thing is certain: the next flood will come. Even in the Ahr valley, people don't have a hundred years of peace just because the last catastrophes happened at roughly this distance: 1804, 1910, 2021. How do we not make the same mistakes again? This question is particularly relevant because of climate change, because it means that weather conditions last longer and heavy rain is more likely. This is what researchers from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research recently demonstrated using weather data analyzes in a “Nature” study.But at the same time there is a great desire for normality in the affected areas: that the shops and businesses open again. That tourism is coming back. That you can celebrate Christmas at home.