Bremen in Germany is one of the major harbour cities in Europe just 65 km from the North Sea. Bremen is one of the oldest city states in Europe. The city was a member of the Hanseatic League. Today Bremen has 540.000 inhabitants. The city has 2 universities and one high school. Bremen has strong car manufacturing, air- and aerospace industries and many companies in the food sector like Becks, Kellogs, Kraft Foods, Tchibo etc.

After the severe damages of the Second World War people had turned their back to the river Weser and regarded it as a canal just useful for the transportation of goods to the harbour. They settled at the edge of the city. But this opinion has changed a lot. People returned into the city. Today houses with a view on to the Weser are very popular.

The river Weser drains into the German Bight. The catchment area extends over 44,000 km2 between the German Central Highlands and the North Sea coast. The climate is dominated by the Atlantic influence, the average discharge of the Weser amounts to 320 m³ s-1 with high discharge (up to 1000 to 2000 m³ s-1) in February and March, and low discharge (below 100 m³ s-1) in August and September. As a result of several deepening measures, mainly of the inner estuary, for shipping purposes the tidal range increases to about 4.2 m in Bremen.

The federal state of Bremen is endangered regarding high waters in two kinds of ways. On the one hand an increasing frequency of storm tides from the North Sea is forecasted and on the other hand there are high waters from the upper and middle Weser, so-called interior high waters. A high water comparable with that of the river Elbe in summer 2002 only threatens the dykes of the city of Bremen from the upper and middle Weser up to the middle of the city Bremen. Below that area the river is able to drain every expected interior high water due to the mentioned extension measures for shipping purposes. The overall coastline is protected by dikes which prevent tidal and storm-surge flooding of the lowlands.

The sewer net of the city of Bremen consists of two different systems: The combined water system and separated sewer system (Fig.3).
Within the combined water system domestic, commercial and industrial waste water is drained off together with the rain water in one sewer system.

In times of heavy rain falls the runoff can amount to the hundredfold of the waste water. If the complete amount of the sewer water cannot be pumped to the local urban treatment plant so-called emergency overflows become active. They pump a part of the combined water into the waters. Figure 4 shows the situation in Bremen before the redevelopment in 1986.

To improve the water quality of the polluted systems the senate of building, environment and traffic has been making an effort to minimize the discharge of rain water into the public combined water sewer system. Related to these measures a change in the water act of Bremen had to be performed (priority of non-central rain water removal on private areas) and an examination which public areas with rain water could be separated from the combined water sewer system. Also intended with these measures was an improvement of the purification of the municipal waste water plant Bremen-Seehausen, because the treatment of the diluted waste water as a consequence of heavy rain falls reduce its efficiency.

The area of the RiverLinks Project is an old peat harbour at the end of the peat canal, that links the harbour to the rivers Wuemme, Lesum and Weser. It is only 2.500 m from the city center and 1.000 m from the main railway station. It is next to the famous Buerger Parc, to the Trade Fair Halls with the Convention Centre and some of Bremens best hotels.

In former times the peat canal was a very important transport system to bring heating material - the peat from the countryside of the Devils Moore Region into the city. There have been 30.000 boat landings a year and 80 % of the households in Bremen were heated with peat.
Than there came oil and gas and the peat trade declined. Finally the harbour was closed and now it is only 20 % of the original harbour size left. The other parts were filled with land and are used now for a popular market 3 times a week, a small park and a youth centre.

Today the harbour is used as a reservoir for special heavy rainfalls when the pipes of the mixed use waste water system are not enough to bring the rain floods out of the city. The water that comes out of that special overflow is very dirty and almost all fishes in the harbour die.

Bremen wants to improve the water quality and to reopen the harbour for public use for boating and fishing. There are plans for a Peat Info Centre about the peat history and water management in the city. It should be combined with a cafe/restaurant and a beer garden next to the harbour (by private investment). We want to plan and construct the pipe system to collect the rain water from the large roofs of the Fair halls opposite of the harbour to send the fresh water into the Peat Harbour across a major traffic crossing. To demon-strate this first pilot project of that kind in Bremen we want to install the new Water Info Center next to the harbour (especially for school children).