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PURPLE seminar on peri-urban climate change

Jul 25, 2018

 

The 28th PURPLE General Assembly included a seminar held in Brno on June 27 2018 with the title “Combating Peri-urban Climate Change (mitigating the effects of climate change in peri-urban areas)”.

The event's Czech hosts offered a series of four complementary presentations designed to give both an overview and accompanying detail of the local situation and the sorts of actual and planned interventions which the region and others have developed and are in the process of implementing.

T. Kubíček, of the Regional Development Department (Strategic Development) of the South Moravian region started proceedings by outlining the sort of environmental activities the South Moravian region already undertake and how this is in part shaped by the known impacts of climate change.

Petr Hlavinka of the Mendel University in Brno addressed the audience on the topic of climate change and drought impacts and adaptation, and shared details of available tools for decision-making in the region with regard, for example, to predicting the incidence of drought in the future and how this might affect approaches to crop production.

The sorts of opportunities that might arise from the need to adapt to a changing climate was highlighted in a presentation on Agroforestry – an area of work which Mgr. Lukáš Kala, Ph.D, of the Institute of Botany of the CAS, v.v.i. argued could have benefits in terms both of regional development and rural landscape sustainability, 

The last presentation from the host region was delivered by Ing. Miroslav Foltýn, Head of the Water Management Planning Department, PovodíMoravy, s.p./Morava river basin, state enterprise who gave details of the local situation as regards water management and the role that that might play in mitigating the effects of climate change.

In response to the presentations from the local actors, PURPLE member regions responded with a further set of four presentations

PURPLE Secretary General, Vincent O’Connell, gave an overview of past PURPLE work and statements with regard to climate change and outlined a number of current debates and future funding opportunities which PURPLE may wish to pursue n the short- and mid-tern future.

This intervention was followed by a presentation by Paul van Der Sluys of the Flemish Land Agency (VLM) who shared details of the Water-Land-Scape project currently underway across Flanders highlighting a number of water related local initiatives funded under a special support programme.

Justyna Herian of the Wielkopolska Spatial Planning Office, took as her theme “Climate change in the Wielkopolska region”, providing an analysis of the sort of extreme weather impacts of climate change experienced or anticipated there. She also provided thoughts as regards the importance of public education programmes as a trigger for behaviour change.

Finally, Maciej Sulmicki, of the Mazovian Office of Regional Planning provided the audince with an oversight of extreme weather-related event mitigation measures in Mazovia, detailog the sort of emergency planning meassures that are currently in place and how these contnue to be adapted in face of shifting data and challenges.

 

The presentations from the event are now all available on the events page of the members section of the website.