A Climate for Change

(^180) Vulnerability to Climate Change in Croatia – a Summary Human Development Report - Croatia 2008
adaptation efforts will comprise public sector dam-
age control to limit the adverse economic impacts of
coastal decline and migration away from the coast. In
other cases, for example in critical tourist areas such
as Plitvice Lakes National Park and Krka National Park,
it may be possible to manage aquatic and terrestrial
ecosystem resources differently, to preserve the natural
environments that attract tourists. However, this might
adversely affect other segments of the population, if,
for example, surface and groundwater usage has to be
drastically curtailed to maintain water flow levels. Again,
it will be necessary to obtain more information about the
future physical impacts on certain tourist locations be-
fore any adaptation processes can be implemented.
Coping with sea-level rise is the most unpredictable area
in which adaptation to climate change will take place in
the future. This is due to the uncertainty of sea-level rise
projections and the lack of the necessary databases and
models to not only simulate physical and economic dam-
ages, but also to evaluate the costs and benefits of adap-
tation actions. A great deal of attention has been focused
on investing in protective measures for sea-level rise.
However, the literature on the benefits and costs of “re-
treating” from sea-level rise has failed to address the role
of the public sector in facilitating, or actively influencing,
the abandonment of existing property and structures,
and investment in and relocation of new structures. In-
stead, the process is treated as if it were occurring auton-
omously. Faced with the high cost of protecting some
areas and not protecting others, governments may need
to become involved in assessing what other actions they
can take to move economic activity and people away
from the sea. In this regard, coping with sea-level rise
challenges national and local governments to find ways
to combine the existing legislative, regulatory and fiscal
policy tools currently used to influence economic devel-
opment, and use them to cope with some of the more
extreme shocks of climate change.
To manage health risks, further research must be un-
dertaken to establish the link between climate condi-
tions and health impacts. This will aid in advancing
measures to protect the health of Croatians due to
climate change and extreme weather.
In considering water resources, it is currently very dif-
ficult to determine the adaptation measures Croatia
should take for water resources, apart from the no
regrets approaches indicated above, due to substan-
tial uncertainty about the expected impacts. The one
major impact that was investigated in this Report in-
volves the reduction in hydropower generation due
to reduced river discharges and runoff. As previously
mentioned, this is potentially a major development is-
sue and one that is also related to current climate vari-
ability. Thus, long-term adaptation to climate change
and present day issues coincide very closely, with the
only major change being the need for the Government
to base its hydro-electric capacity plans on runoff pro-
jections that include the risk of climate change. The
potential for the Government to be involved in strate-
gic adaptation in the water resources sector is also very
high when it comes to flooding and water quality, which
can be heavily influenced by climate change. However,
once again, without better information about the physi-
cal impacts of climate change on peak flows and runoff,
it is difficult to say what adaptation options the Govern-
ment should be considering. As this Report has repeat-
edly stressed, the most important effort the Government
should make in the near future is to improve its capacity
to analyse these issues and to develop the additional in-
stitutional capacity for planning and managing water re-
sources that might be needed in the future. Since hydro
dams, flood control structures, waste water treatment
and purification facilities represent relatively large out-
lays of public funds for infrastructure that will last many
decades, the need to integrate climate change into cur-
rent infrastructure planning becomes more acute.