Participatory modelling of vulnerability and adaptive capacity in flood risk management

Being part of the EU-project NeWater on adaptive water resources management, the Ukrainian Tisa river basin is presented as an example for a participatory study dealing with flood risk, vulnerability and adaptive capacity. The Tisa valley is regularly and increasingly faced with hazardous floods at very limited local budgets and high poverty rates. In order to make flood risk management more resilient and better adapted to climate change, scientists and stakeholders applied a set of qualitative and quantitative modelling approaches to characterise prevailing flood risk management, to discover respective vulnerabilities and to identify barriers and options of adaptive capacity. The former were found in the defensive mentality paradigm and the inert and hierarchical structure of present institutions, the latter in, firstly, an enormous potential to link the knowledge of different stakeholders in the region, secondly, a better integration of the individual flood preparedness of households and thirdly, the active involvement of the Church as institution in local flood risk management.