A little over a decade ago, a number of legislative changes were made in Polish law dealing with spatial planning in relation to floodplains and water management. More specifically, the amendments were a consequence of the adoption of the relevant Floods Directive by the European Parliament and the European Council in 2007, which was introduced as a countermeasure to the allegedly increasing flood risks associated with the ongoing urbanisation of floodplains. It was recognised that the risks of material and non-material damage associated with increasing urbanisation are so great that appropriate legal provisions must be introduced to reduce them. More than a decade has passed since the introduction of these provisions (the Floods Directive was adopted in Poland in March 2011). Over time, it has become apparent that the implementation of many legislative changes in Poland related to spatial planning in floodplains has been impractical and has had a very negative impact on the spatial and economic development of these areas. In this article we focus on the Lower Bug Valley and show how these new laws have led to a deterioration of the living situation in the floodplains. Indeed, the problem of economic decline in the floodplains and Natura 2000 sites is very serious and affects people who have lived for years in a 2-5 km wide strip in quiet surroundings flood-prone areas and along the river bend. Restrictions on livestock and the decline of agriculture are compounded by the lack of interest in acquiring habitats and land. These areas are becoming an open-air museum with residents living on social benefits and pensions.
PL
Nieco ponad dziesięć lat temu w polskim prawie dokonano szeregu zmian legislacyjnych dotyczących planowania przestrzennego w odniesieniu do terenów zalewowych i gospodarki wodnej. Dokładniej rzecz ujmując, zmiany te były konsekwencją przyjęcia przez Parlament Europejski i Radę Europejską w 2007 r. stosownej dyrektywy powodziowej, która została wprowadzona jako środek zaradczy na rzekomo rosnące ryzyko powodziowe związane z postępującą urbanizacją terenów zalewowych. Uznano, że ryzyko szkód materialnych i niematerialnych związanych z nasilającą się urbanizacją jest tak duże, że należy wprowadzić odpowiednie przepisy prawne w celu jego ograniczenia. Od wprowadzenia tych przepisów minęła już ponad dekada (dyrektywa powodziowa została przyjęta w Polsce w marcu 2011 r.). Z czasem okazało się, że wprowadzenie w Polsce wielu zmian legislacyjnych związanych z planowaniem przestrzennym na terenach zalewowych było niepraktyczne i miało bardzo negatywny wpływ na rozwój przestrzenny i gospodarczy tych obszarów. W niniejszym artykule koncentrujemy się na Dolinie Dolnego Bugu i pokazujemy, jak te nowe przepisy doprowadziły do pogorszenia sytuacji życiowej na terenach zalewowych. Rzeczywiście, problem upadku gospodarczego na terenach zalewowych i obszarach Natura 2000 jest bardzo poważny i dotyka ludzi, którzy od lat żyją w pasie o szerokości 2-5 km w spokojnym otoczeniu terenów zagrożonych powodzią i wzdłuż zakoli rzek. Ograniczenia w hodowli i upadek rolnictwa potęgują brak zainteresowania pozyskiwaniem siedlisk i gruntów. Tereny te stają się skansenem, którego mieszkańcy żyją z zasiłków społecznych i rent.
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Proxy data and qualitative information are important assets in water resources and floods management. In the research, the river water bodies with characteristic toponyms (hydronyms) in Greece that potentially reflect the water’s quality or the occurrence of floods are evaluated in comparison to the European Union’s (EU) Water Framework and Flood Directives implementation process outputs. For doing so, after identifying the river water bodies with characteristic toponyms which form the 10.2% of the Greek water bodies, the toponyms are cross correlated with the water bodies quality status as retrieved by the Directives’ databases to validate the existence of linkages between the names and the quality. Similarly, the significant floods, as derived from the Flood Directive, are spatially allied with the water bodies with characteristic toponyms to ground truth the connection between significant floods and water bodies whose toponyms imply flood prone areas. The research outputs indicate a high degree of correlation both in terms of water quality and floods, meaning that in almost all cases the water body toponym depicts the good or bad quality of the water body or the occurrence of flood events. Moreover, it is established that almost 90% of the water bodies with characteristic names are intermittent and ephemeral ones. The water bodies’ toponyms, hence, are proposed as an auxiliary criterion during the Directives implementation process that could foster increased water quality and flood-related knowledge, especially in intermittent and ephemeral water bodies which are generally lacking observations, and can be applied not only in all EU-Member States’ waters, but also in global scale.
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Flooding events are rising across European watercourses because of changing climatic conditions and anthropogenic pressure. To deal with these events, the European Floods Directive requires the development of flood risk management plans regularly updated every 6 years, where areas affected by flood risk and relative management strategies should be identified. Along the Directive, sediment transport and morphological changes in freshwater environments like rivers are only marginally considered, leading to a possibly wrong estimate of the impact of floods in the case of watercourses in which sediment transport represents a fundamental component. Using the Secchia River in Italy as a case study, the paper compares two numerical simulations performed with the freeware iRIC suite, imposing the same boundary conditions but comparing fixed and mobile bed. The obtained results pinpoint the importance of considering sediment transport in drawing flooding scenarios for alluvial sandy rivers. As suggested by this example, for the incoming revisions of the flood risk management plans, forecasted by 2021, water managers should account for the dynamic behaviour of surface watercourses, considering sediments not only as a driver of pollutants but also as a key aspect that shapes the environment and should be considered in modelling future scenarios and drawing associated management strategies.
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