Piotr Matczak

Individuals Matter: Exploring Strategies of Individuals to Change the Water Policy for the Tisza River in Hungary

This paper offers a novel interpretation of the introduction of floodplain rehabilitation and rural development into the water policy for the Tisza River in Hungary. It looks at the role of individuals and the strategies that they used to bring about water policy change. Five strategies are explored: developing new ideas, building coalitions to sell ideas, using windows of opportunity, playing multiple venues and orchestrating networks. Our discussion on the importance of each strategy and the individuals behind it is based on interviews, group discussions and a literature review. The international and political attention sparked by a series of floods, dike failure and a major cyanide spill, which preceded national elections, opened a window of opportunity for launching ideas. A new regional coalition successfully introduced floodplain rehabilitation into the water policy arena. Our analysis emphasizes the importance of a responsible civil servant who recognizes a new policy idea at an abstract level and a credible regional coalition that advocates the new idea regionally.

Differences in flood hazard projections in Europe – their causes and consequences for decision making

ABSTRACT This paper interprets differences in flood hazard projections over Europe and identifies likely sources of discrepancy. Further, it discusses potential implications of these differences for flood risk reduction and adaptation to climate change. The discrepancy in flood hazard projections raises caution, especially among decision makers in charge of water resources management, flood risk reduction, and climate change adaptation at regional to local scales. Because it is naïve to expect availability of trustworthy quantitative projections of future flood hazard, in order to reduce flood risk one should focus attention on mapping of current and future risks and vulnerability hotspots and improve the situation there. Although an intercomparison of flood hazard projections is done in this paper and differences are identified and interpreted, it does not seems possible to recommend which large-scale studies may be considered most credible in particular areas of Europe. EDITOR D. Koutsoyiannis ASSOCIATE EDITOR not assigned

Adaptation to flood risk - results of international paired flood event studies

As flood impacts are increasing in large parts of the world, understanding the primary drivers of changes in risk is essential for effective adaptation. To gain more knowledge on the basis of empirical case studies, we analyze eight paired floods, that is, consecutive flood events that occurred in the same region, with the second flood causing significantly lower damage. These success stories of risk reduction were selected across different socioeconomic and hydro-climatic contexts. The potential of societies to adapt is uncovered by describing triggered societal changes, as well as formal measures and spontaneous processes that reduced flood risk. This novel approach has the potential to build the basis for an international data collection and analysis effort to better understand and attribute changes in risk due to hydrological extremes in the framework of the IAHSs Panta Rhei initiative. Across all case studies, we find that lower damage caused by the second event was mainly due to significant reductions in vulnerability, for example, via raised risk awareness, preparedness, and improvements of organizational emergency management. Thus, vulnerability reduction plays an essential role for successful adaptation. Our work shows that there is a high potential to adapt, but there remains the challenge to stimulate measures that reduce vulnerability and risk in periods in which extreme events do not occur.

Adaptation and Mainstreaming of EU Climate Change Policy: An Actor-Based Perspective

Adaptation to climate change (in comparison to the mitigation agenda) is a relatively new focus for both research and policy communities. Drawing from ongoing ‘actor-based’ research being carried out for the ADAM project, this briefing paper reports on the knowledge base being developed through a process of engagement with experts and key stakeholders across a variety of countries, landscape types, sectors, institutions and actors. The concluding discussion then focuses on some of the implications of these early findings for both EU policy and decision-making more generally.

Evolution of civil security systems: the case of three Central European countries

National civil security systems (CSSs) are powerful risk management tools. They do, however, sometimes fail to adjust, as e.g. the Fukushima disaster demonstrates. Understanding the (mal)adaptation of CSSs is thus crucial. Yet, comprehensive analyses of the evolution of CSSs are not common. It is the aim of this paper to fill this gap and, more importantly, to identify the main causes of changes. This paper investigates how the CSSs of the Central European countries (Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland) have changed since their democratic transition in 1989. We aim to understand the role of the main drivers of change leading to the adaptation of the CSSs. Specifically, the impact of the so-called focusing events is investigated that are identified based on the OFDA/CRED International Disaster Database. We base our work on a review of legal acts, documents and interviews with experts and practitioners. We find common patterns in all three countries with a specific crisis being constitutive for the CSS change on the one hand and with the ‘paradigmatic policy change’ of 1989/1990 not playing a decisive role.

Doing more while remaining the same? Flood risk governance in Poland: Flood risk governance in Poland

This paper presents how the approaches to flood risk in Poland have evolved over the last 25 years. The reliance on structural defence and on the state as the key responsible actor was challenged by four triggering events: two large floods; the collapse of the communist system; and the European Union accession. The paper reveals that (1) the radical transformation of the political system did not lead to significant changes in flood risk governance; (2) changes in response to disastrous floods are incremental. Despite the pressures, the Polish flood risk governance preserved its core functional characteristics. Until the 1997 flood, it exhibited the exhaustion mode of institutional dynamics, with issue marginalisation and poor financing, while after this flood, the layering-type mode prevailed, where innovative ideas were accommodated by the established system. The analysis of the Polish flood risk governance dynamics suggests that changes cannot be taken for granted, even facing significant pressures and windows of opportunities.

A framework for evaluating the effectiveness of flood emergency management systems in Europe

Society is faced with a range of contemporary threats to everyday life, from natural and technological hazards to accidents and terrorism. These are embodied within integrated emergency management arrangements that are designed to enhance preparedness and response to such incidents, and in turn facilitate a prompt recovery. Such arrangements must be inherently dynamic and evolve as new threats emerge or as existing threats change. An example of the latter is the changing nature of flooding, which is projected to increase in both frequency and severity with climate change. Recognizing this evolving threat, we focus on the evaluation of the effectiveness of domestic Flood Emergency Management Systems (FEMS) as components of integrated emergency management arrangements. Despite the extensive body of literature that documents success conditions of so-called effective emergency management more broadly, there have been only a few attempts to construct a comprehensive evaluation framework to support objective assessment and cross-country comparison. Addressing this gap, we formulate an evaluation framework specifically tailored to the study of FEMS in Europe, which is then provisionally applied to the study of FEMS in England (UK), France, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden. Important differences are observed in how FEMS have evolved in relation to differing contextual backgrounds (political, cultural, administrative, and socio-economic) and exposures to flood hazard. From this provisional assessment, a number of opportunities for, and constraints to, enhancing the effectiveness of FEMS in Europe are discerned. The evaluation framework thus serves as an important stepping stone for further indepth inquiry, and as a valuable tool for future comparative study.

Accelerating Progress Toward the Zero Hunger Goal in Cross-Boundary Climate Change Hotspots

The most recent 2017 United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals progress report highlighted the need to accelerate the pace of progress in order for the Sustainable Development Goals to be fully achieved. Responding to these concerns, the present commen tary proposes four distinct, but interrelated approaches to accelerate the Zero Hunger G oal in transboundary climate change hotspots, regions which suffer from multiple stressors and vulnerabilities, and in which prevalence of food insecurity and malnutrition often remains disproportionately high. These conceptual, programmatic and policy approaches are discussed drawing from a newly developed conceptual framework and referring to specific examples from climate change hotspots around the world.

Managing urban flood resilience as a multilevel governance challenge: an analysis of required multilevel coordination mechanisms

In both academic literature and flood risk management practices, it is argued that governance initiatives are needed to enhance the flood resilience of urban agglomerations. Multiple levels of gove ...

Flood Risk Reduction—Opportunities for Learning

This chapter examines opportunities for learning in the area of flood risk reduction in Poland, that was devastated by several recent floods, in particular in 1997 and 2010. We can learn from a champion, such as Gilbert F. White, a great visionary who revolutionized flood risk management. We can learn from own past failures of ourselves or from failures of others. However, sometimes, no constructive lessons from own failures are drawn—we learn nothing and we fail again. Finally, we can learn from examples of good solutions and practices, both domestic (such as flood risk reduction initiatives at the grass root level, as well initiatives in the realm of internet and social media) and international (such as US insurance and relocation programs and the Pitt Report, prepared after the 2007 flood in the UK).