Evidence from the Tisza region so far suggests that successful adaptation requires both formal regulatory rules and informal social relations
The Tisza River Basin: Adaptation to climate change in floodplain management
Water management in the Hungarian Tisza region offers an attractive case to study mainstreaming adaptation and mitigation. Climate change is connected to the three main water- related problems of the Tisza region: floods, in-land water stagnation and droughts. The new water management plan calls for rural development, water retention and the revitalisation of floodplains. Implementation of the plan is hard, however, since the benefits remain unquantified and property rights are ill-defined. Opportunities are thereby missed to capitalize on the potential of ecosystems to regulate floods and droughts.
In the spring of 2003 the Hungarian government issued a decree that marked a substantial shift in addressing water management. The new water management plan for the Tisza River in Eastern Hungary recognised rural development and nature conservation as important objectives next to flood protection. Floodplain revitalisation and land-use change were introduced as strategies to replace or complement prevailing engineering approaches. This was surprising because for 150 years water management had been dominated by river regulation, the construction of embankments and drainage. Water management had served mostly the interests of large-scale agriculture.
The ADAM project is studying what happened in Hungary in the period leading up to the breakthrough year of 2003 and in the following years when actors had to deliver on the new direction taken in water management. It is examining under what conditions floodplain revitalisation, land use change and rural development reduce climate-related risks in the Hungarian Tisza River Basin. The multidisciplinary team assesses the agricultural and hydrological consequences of climate change, as well as the institutional setting conducive to climate change adaptation and mitigation.
Evidence from the Tisza region so far suggests that successful adaptation requires both formal regulatory rules and informal social relations. Informal relations are crucial in strengthening autonomous adaptation and to capitalise on local traditions and experience. At the same time, formal rules can mainstream adaptation into policy cycles and are required to include adaptation in longer term planning, investment and large-scale infrastructure. Yet the regulatory framework and operational implementation are hardly addressed in regional adaptation policy-making. Government organisations are under-prepared to mainstream and to finance integrated adaptation policies where the cooperation among ministries is crucial. The importance of informal relations is Your browser may not support display of this image.often overlooked in policy-making. This includes creating ‘space for learning and feedback’ pilots and facilitating new ways of working between academics, stakeholders, experts and policy-makers. Allowing actors to clarify and change their roles and responsibilities in both policy development and implementation can support adaptation and deserves more attention. The sharing of costs and benefits between actors is central to the successful Your browser may not support display of this image.implementation of adaptation and has to be addressed in vulnerability studies and adaptation planning.
For further information see Work Package P3d or contact: Saskia Werners, Centre for Water and Climate, Wageningen University and Research Centre,
, or Zsuzsanna Flachner, Research Institute for Soil Science and Agricultural Chemistry, Budapest,
