Efficiency of Polder Modernization for Flood Protection. Case Study of Golina Polder (Poland)

Ireneusz Laks,Zbigniew Walczak

doi:10.3390/su12198056

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of the effectiveness of variants of the reconstruction of a polder, which is part of the flood protection system of a large urban agglomeration. The Golina polder, located in the floodplain of the Warta River, was selected as the case study. The multi-criteria decision support methods AHP and Fuzzy AHP were used to assess the effectiveness of individual variants. Information on the floods from 1997 and 2010, data on land cover, land development, nature and historical objects were used to estimate the value of the coefficients for the multi-criteria decision methods. It was shown that the planned deep modernization of the hydrotechnical infrastructure and the purchase of land in the polder area is less effective than maintaining the current state of development of the polder.

Highlights

The construction of new hydrotechnical facilities or their modernization usually requires substantial financial expenditures and involves significant interference in the natural environment; it often affects the living conditions of local communities
Variant 2 (Alternative A2)—reconstruction in accordance with the assumptions described in section “Reconstruction variants of the Golina polder”—a basic variant;
Variant 3 (Alternative A3)—reconstruction in accordance with the assumptions described in the section “Reconstruction variants of the Golina polder”—an extended variant

Summary

Introduction

The construction of new hydrotechnical facilities or their modernization usually requires substantial financial expenditures and involves significant interference in the natural environment; it often affects the living conditions of local communities. This applies in particular to large-scale facilities, such as multi-functional retention reservoirs or controllable flood retention areas. The pressure is frequently reinforced by the opinions of people who are not knowledgeable, but have, a strong influence over local populations This leads to making arbitrary decisions on the spur of the moment, with emotions that sometimes result in ineffective spending of significant sums, usually public money, affecting large areas. This requires the use of advanced methodologies of multi-criteria decision support

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion