Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. I'm Victoria Craig in Frankfurt, Germany, where a busy election season has come to a close.

On Sunday, voters made their choice for who will succeed Angela Merkel as the next chancellor.

She's been at the helm of Europe's biggest economy for the last 16 years.

A number of issues have dominated on the campaign trail, but one, bolted to the top of the

list in July, after devastating floods rocked the west of the country.

Everything's got to be replaced from top to bottom.

Heating, electricity, doors, windows, my stock. I've only got two tables and a mannequin

left. That's it. We've been travelling through some of the worst affected areas, finding out

whether more resilient infrastructure could help limit the damage from extreme weather events

like this one. We have the technology, we have the knowledge, but it's not really used in a wide context.

We need a massive change, honestly.

That's important.

So we're asking, with climate change and environmental protection an increasingly important issue

for people across the world, how can governments and private industry work together to build

more resilient infrastructure to limit catastrophic damage in the future? That's all ahead here

on Business Daily from the BBC. I'm walking down a street leading away from the R River,

and as you can probably hear, construction is in full swing.

Workers are drilling and hammering in a nearby church behind me, and there's been a constant flow of trucks and tractors that have been lumbering down this very narrow street.

Two months ago, a once-in-a-century flood swept through this main thoroughfare,

sending water three meters high swirling around the buildings. Now, all that's left are piles of rubble outside these businesses. We're stopping halfway down this street at the front of a shop called

Clara. But like every business here, it's a shell of its former self.

The sign no longer hangs above the door,

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