Abstract
Land use is considered as a non-structural, ecologically beneficial flood protection measure. Forest as one of the land use types has many useful applications which can be observed in detail on www.nwrm.eu website project. It is scientifically proved that afforestation influences flood events with high probability of occurrence. However, it is still to be argued how to measure land use impact on the hydrological response of watershed and how it should be measured in an efficient and quantifiable way. Having the tool for such an impact measurement, we can build efficient land management strategies. It is difficult to observe the impact of land use on flood events in the field.Therefore, one of the possible solutions is to observe this impact indirectly by means of hydrological rainfall-runoff models as a proxy for the reality. Such experiments were conducted in the past. Our study aims to work on the viability assessment, methodology and tools that allow to observe this impact with use of selected hydrological models and readily available data in Poland. Our first reaserch site is located within headwaters of the Kamienna river watershed. This watershed has been affected by ecological disaster, which resulted in loss of 65% of forest coverage. Our proposed methodology is to observe this transformation and its effect on the watershed response to heavy precipitation and therefore change in the flood risk.
Highlights
Flood protection is a set of organized measures of an adaptive system as a response to identified flood risk
The Member States of the European Union promote an idea of sustainable development and implement it trough in all related policies and directives
Afforestation as one of the land use types, has many useful applications which can be observed in detail on natural water retention measures (NWRM) website project
Summary
Flood protection is a set of organized measures of an adaptive system as a response to identified flood risk. If it is an inhabited two storey house in which the first floor is not inhabited, the building is reinforced against flood hazard, a flood warning system is in place and people do have rescue plan prepared, its sensitivity is much lower Another factor of the vulnerability depends on the system’s adaptive capacity. Efficient land use management may maximize water retention capabilities of the watershed which may result to slower response and lower peak flows in the watershed after heavy rainfall This would lead to lower water depth and velocities, smaller flood risk area and to flood risk reduction. As previously stated, this poses a challenge, which has been only partially addressed so far, namely the need to quantify the effectiveness of land use and land cover related measures in the reduction of a flood risk
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