The purpose of this article is to examine the significance of the flood hazard for the functioning of the critical infrastructure in Poland and to suggest adequate methods and strategies for reducing the vulnerability of critical infrastructure to flooding. The main research method used is institutional and legal analysis, which shows how critical infrastructure is protected in Poland. The context of climate change is taken into account, the consequences of which may trigger increased threat, and its significance is discussed. It is also shown that river floods of a pluvial character constitute the greatest hazard in Poland, as they pose a threat to urban areas where most critical infrastructure is located. The author lists methods which can be used to protect critical infrastructure from flooding. Examples of systems are also provided. A conclusion is formed that the approach to this problem should be comprehensive and make use of methods related to flood prevention, flood defence and flood mitigation, and above all, the relocation of elements of the critical infrastructure. It is evident that the best time to reduce the susceptibility of specific systems to floods is when they are developed or modernised by taking into account the flood risk. Lastly, the biggest problem of the critical infrastructure in Poland is highlighted, namely its identification once it is already built, which means its location had not been thought through.
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Identifying flood risk-prone areas in the regions of extreme aridity conditions is essential for mitigating flood risk and rainwater harvesting. Accordingly, the present work is addressed to the assessment of the flood risk depending on spatial analytic hierarchy process of the integration between both Remote Sensing Techniques (RST) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS). This integration results in enhancing the analysis with the savings of time and efforts. There are several remote sensing-based data used in conducting this research, including a digital elevation model with an accuracy of 30 m, spatial soil and geologic maps, historical daily rainfall records, and data on rainwater drainage systems. Five return periods (REPs) (2, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, and 200 years) corresponding to flood hazards and vulnerability developments maps were applied via the weighted overlay technique. Although the results indicate lower rates of annual rainfall (53–71 mm from the southeast to the northwest), the city has been exposed to destructive flash floods. The flood risk categories for a 100-year REP were very high, high, medium, low, and very low with 17%, 41%, 33%, 8%, and 1% of total area, respectively. These classes correspond to residential zones and principal roads, which lead to catastrophic flash floods. These floods have caused socioeconomic losses, soil erosion, infrastructure damage, land degradation, vegetation loss, and submergence of cities, as well life loss. The results prove the GIS and RST effectiveness in mitigating flood risks and in helping decision makers in flood risk mitigation and rainwater harvesting.
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