Extreme flood in Southern Poland
Paweł Rowiński, Director of the Institute and Michael Nones, Associate Professor of Hydrology and Hydrodynamic Department at the Institute, were interviewed by the journalists from TVP WORLD.
The death toll from torrential rain and flooding in Central Europe has risen to at least 16, and several people remain missing. Authorities in the Czech Republic, Poland and Austria have asked citizens to evacuate to higher ground, fearing that the worst is yet to come. Paweł Rowiński and Michael Nones discussed the current situation from a scientific standpoint at TVP WORLD.
During the interviews, the key drivers were discussed, pointing out similarity and differences of this event with respect what happened in 1997. Here it is worth reminding that exceptional events, usually characterized by a return period of centuries, are happening only 30 years apart, showing a clear sign of climate change, with extreme events happening more frequently.
The current event pointed out limitations in existing flood retention infrastructures. Those structures are designed on past data, so they can underperform in the case of extreme and rarely documented extreme events, and are also ageing. To address these limitations, maintenance is a very much needed, but also the integration of hard engineering with nature based solutions, to adapt better to changing climate conditions.
Moving further, there is the need for a rethinking of management strategies and disaster preparedness. On the one side, flood retention infrastructures should be distributed across the entire catchment, also considering giving rivers more room to expand, eventually reducing new development plans that interfere with floodplains. On the other side, long-term planning strategies that account for investments in risk reduction is imperative, so the population will be more prepared to events that might happen more frequently.
