Flood as permacrisis. Response-Ability, and the Politics of Water

Study regionPoland, with the regions of Baltic Coast and Pomerania, Masuria-Podlasie, Greater Poland, Masovia, Silesia, and Lesser Poland located in the basins of the Baltic Coast rivers, the Vistula River and the Oder River. Study focusThis study focused on completing the documentation of historical floods in Poland before the 19th century and providing a valuable source for historical hydrology studies in Europe. To this end, a comprehensive database of all floods for the 17th–18th centuries was used, that was based on documentary evidence from 293 sources and 978 weather notes describing all flood occurrences. New hydrological insights for the regionThe finding of this study revealed the occurrences of 678 floods, including 37 new cases that have been discovered and documented only in this research. Spatial analysis of the results revealed that most of the floods occurred in the Vistula River basin. The number of floods by season was greatest for summer (JJA) (47 %) and smallest for autumn (7 %). Investigation of the origin of floods indicated that rain was the main factor contributing to occurrences of floods in Poland (38 %). The estimation of the intensity of floods showed that most of the floods were “smaller, regional floods” (257 cases) based on the Brázdil et al. (2006b) classification and “extraordinary” (501 cases) in the Barriendos & Coeur (2004) classification.

The reconstruction of floods in Poland in the last millennium (11th–20th centuries) was evaluated based on more than 1,300 weather notes and sources describing floods. After assessing the quality of each source, the most reliable sources were used for the investigation of flood occurrences. The most commonly used methods for the classification of flood intensity in Europe (Barriendos and Coeur 2004; Brázdil et al. 2006) have been used. The genesis of floods was estimated based on the method presented by Lambor (1954). The results demonstrated that more than 1,600 floods occurred in Poland in the last millennium. The highest number of floods occurred in the 18th (356) and 16th (345) centuries, while the lowest occurred in the 19th (187) and 11th–15th (210) centuries. Assessment of flood trend analysis based on the Mann–Kendall test showed that from 1301 to 2000 there was an increasing trend in the frequency of floods. Analysing the spatial diversity of floods in Poland in the study period indicated that the highest number of floods occurred in the Oder River basin. Also, the number of floods in the Silesia and Baltic Coast regions was significantly more than in the other four analysed regions. The estimation of the intensity of floods demonstrated that most of the floods belong to the “above-average, or supra-regional flood” and the “extraordinary” categories according to Brázdil et al. (2006) and Barriendos and Coeur (2004) classifications, respectively. The evaluation of the main genesis of floods indicated that rain and its sub-types (torrential, frontal, long-lasting, territorially widespread) were the main cause of floods in Poland in the 11th–20th centuries. Studying floods in Poland before the 21st century will improve our understanding of historical hydrology in Europe.The work was supported by the National Science Centre, Poland, project No. 2020/37/B/ST10/00710.

Environment and COVID-19 incidence: A critical review

A reconstruction of historical floods in Poland in the 11th–18th centuries was carried out based on a comprehensive database of documentary evidence. For this period, we collected more than 1700 weather notes describing floods. The quality of each source containing weather notes was estimated. Only the most reliable sources were used for the analysis of flood occurrences and their characteristics. For the classification of flood intensity, the two most commonly used propositions for European rivers (Barriendos and Coeur 2004; Brázdil et al. 2006) were used. The origins of floods were evaluated based on the classification presented by Lambor (1954). The results showed that the highest number of floods in Poland in the study period occurred in the 16th century (294 cases). The number of floods in the 11th–15th, 17th, and 18th centuries were 166, 284, and 272, respectively. Most of the floods were recorded in the Oder River basin and Silesia region (western and south-western Poland). The evaluation of the intensity of floods revealed that most of the floods belong to the “above-average, or supra-regional flood” category according to the Brázdil et al. (2006) classification and the “extraordinary” category for the Barriendos and Coeur (2004) classification. The assessment of the main origin of floods demonstrated that rain and its sub-types (torrential, frontal, long-lasting, territorially widespread) constituted the main cause of floods in Poland in the 11th–18th centuries. The findings of this study will improve existing knowledge of historical hydrology in Europe and Poland before the 19th century. The work was supported by the National Science Centre, Poland, project No. 2020/37/B/ST10/00710. 

SEER, 93, 4, OCTOBER 2015 782 The contrast between German and Romanian actions is illustrated by the fact that the largest proportion of Jews to survive Axis rule during the Second World War in the Soviet Union was in Transnistria. Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. D. Deletant and UCL SSEES Service, Hugo. Germans to Poles: Communism, Nationalism and Ethnic Cleansing after the Second World War. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and New York, 2013. ix + 378 pp. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. Index. £65.00: $99.00. The title of Hugo Service’s impressive monograph, Germans to Poles, actually refers to two important events, simultaneous and intertwined but with distinctive dynamics, that unfolded in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. The first involved the forced emigration of millions of Germanspeaking residents of what had been the eastern regions of Germany, as well as their replacement by millions of in-migrating Polish-speakers. The second involved an attempt to change from German to Polish the ethnic classification of hundreds of thousands of bilingual residents of those regions, facilitating their transition from wartime membership in a German racial community to post-war membership in a homogeneous Polish nation-state. Thanks to a recent surge in scholarship, some in English but most, predictably, in German and Polish, these phenomena are much better known than they were a generation ago. But Service’s book is among the first major studies that offers a combined analysis of mass migration on the one hand and attempted mass cultural assimilation on the other. The primary-source research for Germans to Poles is focused on two case studies. The first is the district/county of Hirschberg/Jelenia Góra in Lower Silesia, located in the mountainous region bordering the current-day Czech Republic and not far from the current German-Polish frontier. This was an area inhabited before the war almost exclusively by German-speakers with no sense of Slavic descent. In this sense, it was representative of most of the lands east of the Oder and Neisse rivers, where the local German population would be deemed essentially unassimilable and thus slated for removal. But as Service carefully explains, the immediate wartime and post-war experiences of different areas varied enormously. In contrast to regions such as East Prussia, which witnessed large-scale flight and de-population before the end of the war, Hirschberg/Jelenia Góra was among the last areas to remain under Nazi rule and so was more a destination than a point of departure for refugees in the winter and early spring of 1945. Polish in-migrants, however, had already REVIEWS 783 begun to arrive by the time hostilities ended. Some were forced emigrants from Poland’s own pre-war eastern territories, which were now absorbed by the Soviet Union. Others came from central Poland, often with the goal of scavenging for mobile property rather than establishing permanent residence. The growth in local population, which soon exceeded the pre-war level, spurred pressure for the expulsion of the remaining German residents. But the need for skilled labour was a countervailing factor in the immediate post-war period, leading to special dispensations to allow — indeed, coerce — thousands of skilled German workers to remain in the country temporarily. The on-going migration of other groups, such as Jewish Holocaust survivors and Ukrainians uprooted from areas near the new Polish-Soviet frontier, further complicated the demographic landscape in the late 1940s. This was anything but the ‘clean sweep’ envisioned by Allied policy makers. Service’s second local case study, of the district of Oppeln/Opole in western Upper Silesia, reveals an even more complicated set of dynamics. As in Hirschberg/Jelenia Góra, in-migration by Polish speaking-speaking settles often preceded German out-migration. But unlike in Lower Silesia, the majority of the existing residents of Oppeln/Opole were officially not considered to be German at all but rather Polish autochtones subjected to superficial and reversible germanization under generations of Prussian/German rule. The subsequent ‘verification’ of these inhabitants ostensibly recognized them full and equal members of the Polish nation. But in practice, both state authorities and in-migrants from elsewhere in Poland often continued to treat...

The drivers associated with Murray-Darling Basin irrigators’ future farm adaptation strategies

According to Food and Agriculture Organization and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, climate change will lead to a severe food-supply problem. In the future, food production will continually decrease because of aggravated effects of climate change, causing food production to continually decrease. Food production will be unable to satisfy the demand of the global population, leading to a food-security crisis. As the world population continues to increase, the shortage of food will become increasingly severe, particularly for those located in “climate impact hotspots” of tropical, subtropical, small-island countries, and countries that are dependent on imports to meet domestic demand such as Taiwan. Numerous Taiwanese studies have suggested that agricultural and fishery productivity has declined because of climate variation, which may cause changes and instability in food quantity and quality, and increase deficiency and uncertainty in the food supply. Therefore, to discuss the risks posed by climate change to the stability of food supply and demand, this paper, taking Taiwan as a case, explored the impact of climate variation on food security and future adaptation strategies. TaiCCAT’s supportive system for decision-making (TSSDA) was adopted here to assess and analyze the current situations of agricultural and fisheries production and supply, as well as future food supply risks, in addition to evaluating the deficiencies in the existing climate adaptation strategies in order to plan and revise feasible future adaptation alternatives. Based on the rule of risk management, the adaptation strategies recommended in this study were differentiated into two categories: proactive adaptation and planned adaptation. Proactive adaptation is emphasized to counter the uncertainty of food production, which increases the difficulty of production and necessity to import food. Conversely, planned adaptation can be used to manage the uncertainty of food supply to implement adjustments in production and marketing, as well as to mitigate the impact of climate variation.

Disaster risk reduction in conflict contexts: Lessons learned from the lived experiences of Rohingya refugees in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh

Schmidt, L., Delicado, A., Gomes, C., Granjo P., Guerreiro, S., Horta, A., Mourato, J., Prista, P., Saraiva, T., Truninger, M., O’Riordan, T., Santos, F.D., and Penha-Lopes, G. 2013. Change in the way we live and plan the coast: stakeholders discussions on future scenarios and adaptation strategies In: Conley, D.C., Masselink, G., Russell, P.E. and O’Hare, T.J. (eds.), Proceedings 12 th International Coastal Symposium (Plymouth, England), Journal of Coastal Research, Special Issue No. 65, pp. 1033-1038, ISSN 0749-0208. A scenario of increased risks due to climate change and coastal erosion, coupled with a stringent economic recession, is threatening the Portuguese coast. Three particular locations are the focus of CHANGE – Changing Coasts, Changing Climate, Changing Communities, a 3-year study (2010-2013) that aims to understand social perceptions about coastal risks and to examine new ways of adaptive management. The project involved assessing peoples’ representations about the coastal present and possible coastal futures and discussed coastal change with local populations, in a country in which the protection of vulnerable coast to date has had little public involvement. The three coastal stretches studied face increasing coastal risks and the perspective of reduced public spending, fuelling uncertainty about their future. Public participation in coastal management has been almost entirely absent, which makes the social science based contribution of this research even more relevant. This research combines: a) scientific assessments on the past and future evolution of the shoreline, taking into account the impacts of climate change; b) interviews with policy-makers, coastal experts and stakeholders, as well as local public opinion surveys; c) the outputs of a model for coastal governance and community building, based on local discussions through focus groups and workshops. This paper is based on the surveys and focus groups undertaken in the case-study area most at risk from coastal change, Vagueira. We conclude that there is a growing perception of coastal threat and potential for the development of adaptive coastal management, taking advantage of local knowledge and initiative.

Land-use planning adaptation in response to SLR based on a vulnerability analysis

Abstract. Forest ecosystems play a key role in global ecological balance and provide a variety of tangible and intangible ecosystem services that support the livelihoods of rural poor. In addition to the anthropogenic pressure on the forest resources, climate change is also impacting vegetation productivity, biomass and phenological patterns of the forest. There are many studies reported all over the world which use change in Land Use Land Cover (LULC) to assess the impact of climate change on the forest. Land use change (LC) refers to any anthropogenic or natural changes in the terrestrial ecosystem at a variety of spatial or temporal scale. Changes in LULC induced by any causes (natural/anthropogenic) play a major role in global as well as regional scale pattern which in turn affects weather and climate. Remote sensing (RS) data along with Geographic Information System (GIS) help in inventorying, mapping and monitoring of earth resources for effective and sustainable landscape management of forest areas. Accurate information about the current and past LULC including natural forest cover along with accurate means of monitoring the changes are very necessary to design future adaptation strategies and formulation of policies in tune of climate change. Therefore, this study attempts to analyze the changes of LULC of Kanha Tiger Reserve (KTR) due to climate change. The rationale for selecting KTR is to have a largely intact forest area without any interference so that any change in LULC could be attributed to the impact of climate change. The change analysis depicted changes in land use land cover (LULC) pattern by using multi-temporal satellite data over a period of time. Further, these detected changes in different LULC class influence the livelihoods of forest-dependent communities. As the study site is a Sal dominated landscape; the findings could be applied in other Sal dominated landscape of central India in making future policies, adaptation strategies and silvicultural practices for reducing the vulnerability of forest-dependent communities.

Simulations of crop yield due to climate change vary widely between models, locations, species, management strategies, and Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). To understand how climate and adaptation affects yield change, we developed a meta‐model based on 8703 site‐level process‐model simulations of yield with different future adaptation strategies and climate scenarios for maize, rice, wheat and soybean. We tested 10 statistical models, including some machine learning models, to predict the percentage change in projected future yield relative to the baseline period (2000–2010) as a function of explanatory variables related to adaptation strategy and climate change. We used the best model to produce global maps of yield change for the RCP4.5 scenario and identify the most influential variables affecting yield change using Shapley additive explanations. For most locations, adaptation was the most influential factor determining the projected yield change for maize, rice and wheat. Without adaptation under RCP4.5, all crops are expected to experience average global yield losses of 6%–21%. Adaptation alleviates this average projected loss by 1–13 percentage points. Maize was most responsive to adaptive practices with a projected mean yield loss of −21% [range across locations: −63%, +3.7%] without adaptation and −7.5% [range: −46%, +13%] with adaptation. For maize and rice, irrigation method and cultivar choice were the adaptation types predicted to most prevent large yield losses, respectively. When adaptation practices are applied, some areas are predicted to experience yield gains, especially at northern high latitudes. These results reveal the critical importance of implementing adequate adaptation strategies to mitigate the impact of climate change on crop yields.

How are healthy, working populations affected by increasing temperatures in the tropics? Implications for climate change adaptation policies

Mountain regions have been identified as especially vulnerable areas to climate change. Changes in snowfall, glacier retreat and shifts in biodiversity amount and distribution are some examples of the sensitivity of mountain ecosystems. Moreover, in many mountain economies, reliable snow cover plays a key role as an important resource for the winter tourism industry, the main income source and driving force of local development in such regions. This study presents a georeferenced agent-based model to analyze the climate change impacts on the ski industry in Andorra and the effect of snowmaking as future adaptation strategy. The present study is the first attempt to analyze the ski industry in the Pyrenees region and will contribute to a better understanding of the vulnerability of Andorran ski resorts and the suitability of snowmaking as potential adaptation strategy to climate change. This study projects a reduction on the ski season length and the drop of the number of skiers especially in the lowest elevation ski resort of this region. Moreover, this work indicates that snowmaking cannot completely solve the problem of ensuring snow cover at low elevation ski resorts and should be considered as a suitable short-term strategy, but not as a sustainable long-term adaptation strategy. The resulting model can be used as a planning support tool to help local stakeholders understand the vulnerability and potential impacts of climate change and in the decision-making process of designing and developing appropriate sustainable adaptation strategies to future climate variability

This study is to assess the climate change impact on the temporal variation of paddy rice irrigation reservoir water level from the future evaluated watershed inflow, and to suggest an adaptation method of the future reservoir water level management for stable water supply of paddy irrigation demands. A 366.5 km2 watershed including two irrigation reservoirs located in the upper middle part of South Korea was adopted. For the future evaluation, the SLURP model was set up using 9 years daily reservoir water level and streamflow records at the watershed outlet. The average Nash-Sutcliffe model efficiencies for calibration and validation were 0.69 and 0.65, respectively. For the future climate condition, the NIES MIROC3.2 hires data by SRES A1B and B1 scenarios of the IPCC was adopted. The future data were downscaled by applying Change Factor statistical method through bias-correction using 30 years past weather data. The results of future impact showed that the future reservoir storages of autumn and winter season after completion of irrigation period decreased for 2080s A1B scenario. Considering the future decrease of summer and autumn reservoir inflows, the reservoir operation has to be more conservative for preparing the water supply of paddy irrigation, and there should be a more prudent decision making for the reservoir release by storm events. Therefore, as the future adaptation strategy, the control of reservoir release by decreasing in August and September could secure the reservoir water level in autumn and winter season by reaching the water level to almost 100% like the present reservoir water level management.