Civil protection and disaster management

Most of this list is compounds that come apart cleanly, but one short word misleads English readers. Der Damm is the same Germanic word as « dam », and yet on its own it usually means something that lies along the land rather than across a valley: a long raised bank of earth or stone. Der Bahndamm carries a railway, a road runs on a Damm across wet ground, and in a flood such an embankment can end up holding back water it was never built for. When German means the wall that closes a valley and forms a reservoir, it adds a word and says der Staudamm, or uses a different one, die Talsperre. The bank along a river or a coast that exists to keep water out is a third word again, der Deich — the one that gives way in der Deichbruch.