Lessons (not) learned on climate change adaptation policy: qualitative research on the case of floods in Western Balkan countries

Abstract

In this paper we present the findings of our qualitative research on adaptation to climate change within the context of the major floods that hit countries in Central and South-Eastern Europe in 2014. Adaptation here refers to the response of any given social system regarding existing and expected impacts of climate change and extreme climate events. The effectiveness of the response depends on how vulnerable or how resilient a particular system is, and this includes not only technical and biophysical aspects, but also social, cultural, political and economic ones. We conducted empirical research in order to describe how actors in environmental governance structures in three countries – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia and Serbia – viewed the climate change adaptation process, and whether they recognized climate change as a trans-sectoral problem during all the phases of the 2014 flood crisis. The results show that even though most interviewees are aware of the connection between climate change and the 2014 floods, they are unable to properly address these kinds of crises. Given that in all three countries climate mitigation and adaptation measures are divided between different ministries and departments, which are not complementary, this lack of interconnectedness is thus reflected in the interviewees’ observations.