Adaptation strategies

Infrastructure

Possible measures to adapt to insufficient navigable depths on the Dnieper are (1):

• transferring all passengers and load traffic to railway transport. This is not beneficial because it is rather expensive, it paralyses tremendous capital investments into navigation and harbors, and it distorts the infrastructure formed to date.
• renewal of navigation on account of creating the necessary navigable depths (3.2-3.9 m). In this case, bottom-deepening needs to be carried out. The overall costs of these works are estimated at $140-160 million.

Small increases in climate extremes above thresholds or regional infrastructure ‘tipping points’ have the potential to result in large increases in damages to all forms of existing infrastructure nationally and to increase disaster risks (7). Since infrastructure systems, such as buildings, water supply, flood control, and transportation networks often function as a whole or not at all, an extreme event that exceeds an infrastructure design or ‘tipping point’ can sometimes result in widespread failure and a potential disaster (8).

Buildings

Soviet-era panel-style buildings are an important consideration when planning for climate change in the region. Most block flats, which were designed to have a lifespan of about thirty years, already were in disrepair at the time the regimes fell (2). Bulgaria, for instance, recently indicated that 10% of its panel dwellings were in need of urgent repairs (2) while the Slovak Ministry of Construction estimated that it would cost over 10.3 billion Euros and take more than thirty years to complete the structural repairs necessary to ensure the safety of these buildings (3).

Although they are in need of basic renovation, there is growing evidence that panel buildings, both block flats used for housing and public buildings of similar construction, have the potential to be efficiently renovated and to incorporate energy-saving retrofits. The major aspects of retrofitting focus on energy-saving measures. These include thermal insulation, replacement windows, and modernization of central heating systems. In addition to these measures, green roofing is being tested as a further means for improving the quality of living spaces as well as a way to manage fluctuations in precipitation. Studies suggest that rooftop gardens:

• help to control interior temperature, by decreasing the heat entering and exiting a building through the roof, and thus reduce energy demand (4). Widespread introduction of gardens will add to urban greenspace and, in the process, help moderate heat island effects.
• can reduce the level of runoff and moderate the potential of flooding during heavy rainfall (4,5).
• assist in harvesting rainwater. The basic idea is that rainwater is filtered into storage tanks and then used for non-potable activities such as laundry, toilets, and watering plants (6).

References

The references below are cited in full in a separate map 'References'. Please click here if you are looking for the full references for Ukraine.

1. United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1998)
2. Iliev and Yuksel (2004), in: Carmin and Zhang (2009)
3. CiJ (2008), in: Carmin and Zhang (2009)
4. Bass and Baskaran (2001), in: Carmin and Zhang (2009)
5. Hadley and Carter (2006), in: Carmin and Zhang (2009)
6. Carmin and Zhang (2009)
7. Coleman (2002); Munich Re (2005); Auld (2008b); Larsen et al. (2008); Kwadijk et al. (2010); Mastrandrea et al. (2010), all in: IPCC (2012)
8. Ruth and Coelho (2007); Haasnoot et al. (2009), both in: IPCC (2012)