ABSTRACT. - Lessons from historical dike breaches in the Carpathian- Basin. The uniqueness of the topological features of Hungary (93000 km2) in the Carpathian-Basin (~450000km2) is matched by the uniqueness of the tremendous effort the people living here undertook in flood control to improve living conditions. The topographically adjusted flood control system boasts 4200 km of dikes in Hungary and dikes constructed along more than 11,000 km in the Carpathian-Basin.Technical, economic, social and political problems, which had been left unsolved, always surfaced when large floods hit and dikes were destroyed. Numerous interesting lessons can be learnt from dike breaches, one of which concerns breach length. (Nagy 2000, 2001, 2004, 2006) More than nine years of historical research has identified over 2200 dike breaches, including 1054 case where the length of the breach is known.
Key-words: flood hazards, lessons, Carpathian-basin