My paper examines the case of the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine (ICPR). The ICPR, starting as an endeavor to protect the Rhine against pollution, meanwhile developed a comprehensive governance strategy for the stream system. In my paper, I want to explain this change by demonstrating that this strategy is the result of a development process which was triggered by extreme events like the fire at a chemical plant in 1986 and the floods in 1995.
Furthermore, I will illustrate how one of these strategic changes, namely the development of a common flood prevention and mitigation, fueled the preoccupation with climate change, i.e. a subject not manifesting itself in a single extreme event. This will be illustrated by the notion of low water that is nowadays issue of concern for the ICPR as it endangers the economic use, but also the biodiversity of the Rhine.
