Climate change adaptation of the Bihor-Kis-Sárrét region through local catchment community initiatives to improve transboundary water governance and introduce natural water retention measures.

I represent a community catchment-based adaptation initiative launched in a peripheral region. The region is located in south-eastern Hungary (and its neighbouring area in Romania), in the floodplain between the Sebes-Körös river and the Fekete-Körös river. The initiative has been recently launched by 9 Hungarian and 3 Romanian local authorities to prevent the area from drying out.

The problem started with river regulation and drainage, followed by land use based on drainage for intensive agricultural production. Then in the 1970’s additional cross collecting canals (parallel tot he border) were created that constantly drain the waters of former natural watercourses into the surrounding larger rivers. Another problem is that run-off water that collects or flows into agricultural areas is immediately drained by farmers and water management institutions and there is no water retention in agricultural areas. These have led to the drying out of the area. All these human stresses are amplified by  climate change. The amount of rainfall is decreasing, the number of rainy days is decreasing and their distribution is becoming more unpredictable. At the same time there are more intense rainfall events, during which rainwater do not infiltrate into the soil and does not improve the local water balance but runs off quickly from the area. Inland excess water inundation periods are also becoming less frequent and shorter in duration. Former watercourses and the current canals have dried up. Not only has the water disappeared from the watercourses, but the groundwater table has also dropped.

The catchment-based community started to assess the impacts of water scarcity due to climate change and poor water management and started to engage key stakeholders. The following steps are planned:

• Change the agricultural and landscape profile to be able to retain water. This includes the introduction of agricultural practices, green landscape elements and naturalwater retention measures and that can slow down runoff and improve infiltration.
• Modify the functioning of the canals that run through and drain the region to be able to collect and retain water.
• Improve water governance practices between the Hungarian and Romanian water management authorities so that water resources are more evenly distributed and balanced both spatially and in time.
• Develop an organizational model that can manage sub-catchment water resources to reduce vulnerability to climate change.

We would like to present the preliminary impacts assessed,, the options for intervention and the possibilities for further action.