Flooding constitutes one of the main natural hazards in Poland, which causes enormous social, economic and environmental losses. The main causes of the occurrence of floods include intensive rainfall, rapid melting of snow and ice cover, as well as strong gusts of wind from the sea. Based on the resilience theory (resistance, elasticity), which constitutes an efficient tool for the description of the social-ecological system capability or components thereof to mitigate the effects of dangerous events, as well as the capability of reconstructing and adapting the system to new conditions, the authors have analysed the exposure of Polish lakes to flood risks with a probability of occurrence Q0.2%, Q1% and Q10%. In order to determine the level of exposure of lakes to the risk of flooding by flood waters, studies were conducted using the flood hazard and flood risk maps which were developed under the Project entitled "IT System of the Country's Protection against Extreme Hazards". The result of the efforts of the group of authors is the determination of the number of lakes, which are located in the flood risk area Q0.2%, Q1% and Q10%, including division into risk level groups (low, moderate and high). The results presented in the paper may constitute a contribution to further, more detailed studies concerning assessment of the vulnerability of Polish lakes located in the flood prone area.
The main objective of the article is to verify the hypothesis that any municipality in Poland, which is at risk of flood, is a socio-ecological system (SES) of a certain level of adaptability. Assessment of adaptability of an SES municipality at risk of flood requires finding such features of the system which have direct impact on the process of its adaptation to the risk and which make useful indicators for assessing current adaptability of a municipality. Based on the research conducted, the article presents four categories of features: human capital and social potential, financial potential, ecological potential and organisation potential, with 15 features within them to describe the adaptability of a municipality-SES in case of flood risk.
The aim of this article is to present a preliminary assessment of the adaptability of Polish municipalities to the flood hazard. In the conducted studies municipalities were understood not only as basic local government units in Poland, but also as social-ecological systems. The study covered 18 municipalities situated in the sub-basin of Nysa Kłodzka. This region has suffered from numerous floods in the past, and adverse consequences in the form of material losses as well as in human victims let us acknowledge this part of Poland to be one of the most threatened by floods. The analyses used data available in the public domain (mainly from the Statistics Poland database; Polish abbr. GUS) as well as obtained using the questionnaire created for this purpose. The preliminary studies on adaptability of the municipalities in the area of the sub-basin of Nysa Kłodzka have been conducted using the data form the period of 2010-2016. The starting point for conducting a multidimensional comparative analysis, and at the same time the selection of 110 gained diagnostic variables describing 18 determinants of SES adaptability to flood hazard was the identification of 2 main factors determining SES' adaptability (its adaptive potential and adaptive capacity), and 4 categories of determinants of its adaptability (human capital and social potential, financial potential, ecological potential and organizational potential). The initial selection of the diagnostic variables was made using the Pearson correlation coefficient. The proposed logic of aggregation and selection of these variables can be adapted for the adaptability studies on other territorial units and for study on their adaptability to different kinds of threats.
There is a potential threat to lakes and water reservoirs from contamination released due to the flooding of objects that can pose an environmental risk (cemeteries, sewage treatment plants, sewage pumping stations, landfills and industrial plants) located in areas prone to inundation. The analysis covered large lakes and reservoirs (those with the area of over 50 ha), identified as bodies of surface water located in areas potentially affected by flooding of high (10%), medium (1%) and low (0.2%) probability of occurrence. These areas are presented on flood hazard maps and flood risk maps. The results of analyses revealed that the scale of potential threat to Polish lakes, defined as bodies of surface water, with contamination from objects of environmental flood risk is marginal, however, in the case of reservoirs – significant.
Abstract. For Polish municipalities -basic units of local government (LGU), flood constitutes a significant source of material losses resulting both from flood damages and from the costs of restoring the regular functioning of the municipalities after the disaster is gone. Authors stated a thesis that the municipality, despite its constitutional obligations connected with providing the safety for its citizens, is not capable to bear the financial burden shaping the flood protection system in the basin. It is, however, due to support the flood protection system by strengthening its adaptive potential and adaptive capacity for efficient limitation of adverse consequences of flood. To justify this thesis, the financial condition of the municipalities threatened with flood was compared to the size of potential flood losses for floods of the medium probability of occurrence (p = 1%). Authors have shown that the municipality's structure, more than its budget size decides about its financial potential. Especially the municipality's own revenue is an evidence for the determined financial potential, at the same time, it can be a source of the undertaken actions in order to increase the level of the municipality's adaptability in the context of flood hazard. Conducted analyses allow to shape the flood risk management policy, both at the municipal level and on a national scale.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.