The project between four Dutch and German partners builds upon a transnational cooperation agreement in the field of flood prevention signed in 1997 by the Province of Gelderland, the Ministry of Transport and Water Management of the Netherlands, and the Ministry of Environment of the Land of Northrhine-Westfalia. FAR (Extreme floods and flood protection along the Rhine) also follows up a number of IRMA-funded studies. The geographical scope of the project is the transnational section of the Rhine running from Andernach (Germany) to the centre of the Netherlands (around Arnhem).The project’s objective is to strengthen transnational co-operation between the aforementioned regions in the field of flood protection mainly by increasing the technical knowledge on the occurrence and behaviour of extreme floods in the area, as well as examining the effectiveness of proposed flood protection measures and their influence downstream. It will develop tools and techniques for evaluation of flood risk and encourage a transfer of knowledge to similar catchment areas across the NWE. This will potentially be followed up by the development of an effective transnational flood protection strategy. Achievements: a) increased awareness and recognition of the transnational dimension of the prevention of floods within NWE: the newly acquired information clearly demonstrates the transnational dimension of flood protection. The Flood Protection Strategy developed in this project makes use of this dimension. b) increased consensus on critical development issues in flood prevention requiring co-operation efforts: Consensus was developed in this project on the very critical issue of not creating larger flood waves for downstream areas by implementing certain flood protection measures. All parties agreed that all flood protection measures will be examined for not increasing flood waves for downstream areas. In this project instruments were devloped for this purpose. - Consensus was also developed on the issue of solidarity. Areas in the whole catchment area should take part in reducing flood waves. This should not be left to the areas at the downstream end of the river. c) development of transnational and interregional co-operation resulting in transnational plans, schemes and concepts for the prevention of floods, in particular related to transnational river basins and coastal areas: the cooperation for this project will be extended for at least two more years after the project has ended. d) availability of a more consistent knowledge base on flood risk and prevention within NWE