Description
The Ondava river is 125 km long and flows down across the Zemplin region in Eastern Slovakia. The upper part of the Ondava water basin is, due to inappropriate land use and ecosystem functioning loss, a source of flash floods from heavy rainfall that the current landscape pattern is not able to mitigate or eliminate by natural and balanced ecosystem functions. The objective of the project is to improve the capacity of the landscape to adapt to climate change impacts. The project is expected to achieve the restoration of important habitats and ecosystems that were damaged or destroyed by human activities (in forest, wetlands, meadows and other natural or semi-natural landscapes), reconstruction of river banks, hydromorphology and hydrological regime, to build up of several measures for soil erosion prevention, water retention and flood prevention. The role of the donor project partner, the Norwegian Forest and Landscape Institute, is in its expert guarantee of the methodology used in the project. The Association of Municipalities and Cities of Slovakia and the Foundation for Conservation of Biodiversity of Carpatians are also project partners
Summary of project results
The aim of the project was the adaptation of the region to the consequences of climate change, namely the annual floods caused by seasonal rainfall. The objective was achieved, despite the limited personnel, time and funding capacities, by building a total of 505 water-slowing countermeasures from a list of 12 different types, in the regions of 17 different municipalities, with the amount of water retained being 0.645 mil. cubic meters and providing work placement for 169 long-term unemployed for a period of 9 months. With the realization of the project in mind, we created a team of experts, 5 work groups, an analysis of the vulnerability of the region to the consequences of climate change / RASHO /, we designed 12 different adaptation countermeasures , secured the approval of landowners and land users for the realization of said countermeasures, established and non-profit organization / Ondava pre život / to ensure the sustainability of the results of the project and the continuation of activities towards further climate change adaptation in the region . The project was realized within a planned timetable, a set budget and with indicators defined in the project contract. Adaptation countermeasures were created in the region, with 150 unemployed people recovering their work habits, and a pilot project was created to solve unemployment problems and climate change threats to the region. These results are even more important now, when the new governemnt Action Plans take place in the least developed regions of the country.
Summary of bilateral results
Within the project the input of Donor project partner as important scientific authority and professional guarantee was expected, because the DPP has wide experiences with solutions in regard of environmental problems in Norway and also abroad. Within the project cooperation, 2 representatives of the DPP participated on the project launching conference with their presentation about activies of the DPP in Norway. The representative of the DPP participated also on the Closing conference and had a presentation about invasive plants and also wrote the scientific article on this issue.