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      | ©City of Madison | 
  
Flooding following strong rainfall in Madison in 2018 showed that the
    existing creeks did not drain the Starkweather Creek Watershed
    efficiently.
      
    
      
        
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          | ©City of Madison | 
      
    
   
  
    Therefore the Municipal Council decided to have the streambank of one of
    those creeks repaired over a certain length in a pilot "flooding improvement
    project."
  
  
    
      
      
        
          
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            | ©City of Madison | 
        
      
      
        
          
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            | Madison's Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway and Freiburg's Mayor Christine
              Buchheit listen to the explanations of the project
              leader
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    When a delegation from Freiburg headed by Lord Mayor Martin Horn and Mayor
    for the Environment Christine Buchheit came to Madison at the beginning of
    September, our sister city had organized a visit to the site. The idea
    behind this project is to renaturalize the creek bed such that higher water
    flow rates are guaranteed.
    
        
      
        
          
            
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              | The Silberbach in Freiburg-Wiehre is fully grown over. | 
          
        
        Overgrown plants on the banks are one reason for a reduced water flow.
      
 
      
      
        
          
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            | Note the black plastic sheets laid out. | 
        
      
      In Madison, their growth is stopped by covering undesired plants with
      black plastic sheets.
      
        
      
      
        
        
        After the primarily invasive neophytes died, the site was reseeded with
        native plants.
      
 
      
      
        
          
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            | Bank stabilization with boulders (©City of Madison) 
 
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            | ©City of Madison | 
        
      
      Non-native trees (Ash trees in red) will be removed from the banks and
      replaced with native species. 
    
 
    
    
       Another way to prevent flooding is to create water storage basins.
      In Freiburg, people reluctantly remember the Bohrerdamm needed to protect
      the new Dietenbach quarter downstream from flooding.
      
      In Madison, a virtue was made of necessity.
      
                 
        
          
            
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              | Grandview Commons | 
          
        
        In Grandview Commons, a new housing area north of Madison, a depression
        was dredged and flooded, which developed into a biotope.
        
             
          
          
            
This small lake blends naturally into its surroundings. Not
            only ducks have adopted the site.
          
          
            Red Baron had a spontaneous idea. Large amounts of gravel are needed
            to fill in the Dietenbach marsh. Instead of a future flat lawn in
            the middle of the new quarter, can't we leave a natural
            wetland biotope?
          
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