The Comparative Analysis of the Adaptability Level of Municipalities in the Nysa Kłodzka Sub-Basin to Flood Hazard

• Published in: Sustainability 2020-04, Vol.12 (7), p.3003
• Main Authors: Dumieński, Grzegorz, Mruklik, Agnieszka, Tiukało, Andrzej, Bedryj, Marta
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptability; Adaptation; Comparative analysis; Ecosystems; Flood control; Flood hazards; Floods; Local government; Municipalities; Rivers; Sustainability
• ISSN: 2071-1050; 2071-1050
• DOI: 10.3390/su12073003

A municipality is a basic local government unit (LGU) in Poland. It is responsible for the safety of its citizens, especially in circumstances of flood hazard. A municipality is a unique social-ecological system (SES), distinguished by its ability to adapt to flood hazard. It is impossible to specify the conditions a municipality has to reach to achieve the highest adaptability to flood hazard, however, it is possible to assign a level of adaptability to a municipality, one that corresponds to the position of a given municipality among the population of assessed municipalities threatened by floods. Therefore, a tool was developed to rank municipalities by their adaptability on the assumption that the assessment of municipal adaptability was influenced by 15 selected features. The research was carried out using data from the period of 2010–2016 for 18 municipalities-SESs located in the Nysa Kłodzka sub-basin. It was indicated that municipalities located in the higher course of the river possess higher levels of adaptability. At the same time, the size of a flood stands for each municipality position with regards to the synthetic adaptability index (SAI).