Do Water Management and Climate-Adapted Management of Wetlands Interfere in Practice? Lessons from the Biebrza Valley, Poland - Wetlands and Water Framework Directive: Protection, Management and Climate Change - page 54

(in Polish: Wojew ó dzki Zarz ą d Melioracji i Urz ą dze ń Wodnych w Bia ł ymstoku,

WZMiUW), Biebrza National Park (BNP) and — to certain limited extent — local

subjects of national administration — communes. Whilst to the competences of the

first three institutions (RZGW, WZMiUW and BNP) belongs the implementation of
WFD, communes are mostly responsible for the maintenance of ditches and minor
rivers and streams and WFD, although should, is not directly considered.

4.3 Climate Change, Water Management and Ecosystems

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Response

Climatic change impacts to the ecosystems of the Biebrza Valley, although already
de ned as a challenge for valuable wetlands in NE Poland (Grygoruk et al. 2014a ;

Ignar et al. 2011 ), has hardly been anticipated so far neither in the environmental
conservation management in the basin of the river Biebrza nor in the Water
Framework Directive implementation in this area. First steps towards the design
and application of climate-adapted management of protected areas of wetlands in
this region were done in the Biebrza National Park, by implementing the HABIT-
CHANGE project (Rannow and Neubert 2014 ) and by preparation of the draft
document

Climate Adapted Management Plan for the Biebrza National Park
(Grygoruk et al. 2013b ). Main

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findings of the project pointed out that the majority
of climate-related threats for valuable wetlands result from the quantitative altera-
tions of water cycle, either as a direct result of naturally evolving hydrological
processes (increasing frequency of summer

flooding, ongoing decrease in summer
sums of precipitation, increasing frequencies of extremely high summer rainfalls) or
indirectly, as the reaction of stakeholders on these processes (Grygoruk et al.
2014a ).
In order to attempt the assessment of whether the actions implemented re

fl

fl ecting

WFD are capable to deal with the prospective de ned climate change stressors, the

DPSIR matrix of general feedback loops was developed. Such an approach was
proven to be a suitable tool in detecting WFD-implementation-related risk assess-
ment (Borja et al. 2006 ). It anticipates climate-related pressures to habitats (after
Grygoruk et al. 2014a ) that induce the state of ecosystems, to which the negative
impact to be considered in the water management was de ned as the “ threat to the

good status of rivers and wetlands ect

the most critical climate-related pressures, which was the observed and projected
increased recurrence of extreme hydrological events (summer

” (Fig. 4.2 ). The analysis was assumed to re fl

oods, deep droughts
and heavy rainfall events), reduction of the snow pack and the ongoing earlier
occurrence of thaw

fl

floods and observed and projected general increase of the air
temperature in winter. Among the elements of aquatic and wetland ecosystems

fl

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state re ned pressures, there are reactions that origin from the

interfaces of economic, social and environmental spheres. First and foremost, cli-
mate-related pressures defined result

fl ecting the de

in the negative response of stakeholders: