Slovakia has recently established a robust, national policy framework for climate adaptation. Slovakia established a formal adaptation policy framework with the adoption of its National Adaptation Strategy (NAS) in 2018 and its subsequent National Adaptation Plan (NAP) in 2021. This has been an important step to mark a move away from a reactive approach to dealing with the impacts of extreme events and towards a proactive approach that strengthens adaptation investments. The NAS and the NAP identify strategic priorities and objectives, specify their implementation actions and define actors responsible for their execution. 16 local adaptation plans reinforce the national policy instruments. Slovakia’s Ministry of Environment plays a driving role in promoting and mainstreaming adaptation across ministries and levels of government.
While adaptation measurement is part of the implementation reporting planned to be carried out as part of the NAS and the NAP, there is limited progress to date. Adaptation measurement is mentioned as a key objective in Slovakia’s NAP, aiming to inform future adaptation policy adjustments. Specifically, the NAP recommends the adoption of an evaluation system and to monitor the relationship between adaptation costs and benefits. Thus far, information is available on progress achieved in implementing the short-term (as opposed to the medium-term) measures proposed in the NAP, but a framework and methodology to systematically measure adaptation progress is not yet operational.
As a first and important step of adaptation measurement, Slovakia conducted a nation-wide, downscaled climate risk assessment. The assessment aims to inform and improve the objective setting process for adaptation actions and to better align future funding allocation with adaptation priorities. The CRA analyses three climate hazards, considered to be the most prevalent in Slovakia, namely extreme heat and precipitation as well as drought. By identifying a set of indicators, which link socio-economic and land cover data with observed and projected climate hazard information, the methodology determines each municipality’s level of climate risk and geospatially maps them. With this methodology Slovakia develops vulnerability indicators for the whole country, at the local level and in a quantified manner, building on information such as the age of inhabitants, their employment status, their income as well as their access to drinking water.
The climate risk assessment shows that different climate risks prevail in different parts of Slovakia and that this may in turn change under climate change. For example, more than 16% of the Slovak population live in areas at high risk of extreme temperatures, notably in the south of Slovakia. Districts with low access to healthcare and a high proportion of young children are particularly exposed. Droughts pose notable risks to districts in the southwest, including critical agricultural land and areas with large drinking water reservoirs, though this risk might become more prevalent still in the countries western parts in the future. Access to public water supply has been identified as key vulnerability to droughts. In contrast, extreme precipitation presents a risk to districts in the north as well as the east. Municipalities with a high share of Roma populations exhibit the highest level of risk to extreme precipitation.
The full paper is available at:
OECD (2023), "Adaptation measurement: Assessing municipal climate risks to inform adaptation policy in the Slovak Republic", OECD Environment Policy Papers, No. 35, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/dad34bb3-en.
