Problems of Local Flooding in Functional Urban Areas in Poland

The research process of developing recommendations for rural communities directly adjacent to metropolitan cities in the field of local flooding protection, especially retention fee was preceded by: analysis of secondary data in 100 communities in three Functional Urban Areas (Metropolitan Areas, MA) in Poland: Poznan MA, Wroclaw MA and Lodz MA (assessment of flooding and urbanization), analysis of primary data in 18 rural communities immediately adjacent to the metropolitan centers: semi-structured telephone interviews (stormwater fee from the stakeholder perspective) and survey research (local floodings from the citizen perspectives). To illustrate the scale of the flooding problem in MAs, flood risk maps were used along with data from the State Fire Service on local threats, and for assessing the scale of suburbanization data obtained from Statistics Poland. Although residents confirmed their readiness to co-finance the activities supporting the development of water retention, local authorities were hesitant to introduce additional charges for the residents. Therefore, a better solution would be to set the fees already at the national level. However, communities should be given more power with regards to the distribution of collected funds which, in turn, should be allocated directly to the local programs for the enhancement of retention capacity in the local catchments.