Over the last

700 years, 82 surges have exceeded 1.2 m AMSL and the 10-year design level is assumed to be 1.5 ± 0.15 m (Pruszak & Zawadzka 2008). A spectacular example illustrating the consequences of coastal retreat is the ruin of the church at LBH589 mouse Trzęsacz, built in 1250 in the middle of a then village, 700 m from the seashore. In the meantime, the sea has taken away all of that land and almost all of the cliff on which the remains of the church (a single wall – now protected) stand. Since the 1970s coastal erosion, flooding and the frequency and severity of storm conditions has intensified along all of the Polish coast as a result of sea-level-rise, increased storminess and sediment starvation. In recent years, the atmospheric circulation over the Baltic Sea has changed, leading to an increase

in the intensity and frequency of north-westerly storms. Wiśniewski & Wolski (2011) report that the sea level rise rate during a storm surge can be extremely rapid. In January 1993 increases of Everolimus 72 and 70 cm h− 1 were reported at Świnoujście and Kołobrzeg respectively. Projections for the future illustrate the possible greater hazard of rain-generated floods in much of the country, owing to the increasing frequency and amplitude of intense precipitation and increasing frequency of ‘wet’ circulation patterns. On the other hand, Osimertinib purchase the hazard due to snowmelt flooding is expected to decrease (Kundzewicz et al. 2010). Future projections based on climate-models show a greater frequency of intense precipitation. The daily precipitation total with an annual exceedance probability of 0.05 (the so-called 20-year 24 h precipitation, that is exceeded, on average, once in 20 years) in the control period 1981–2000 is projected to become more frequent in the whole of central Europe. On average, it will recur every 12–14 years in 2046–2065 and every 9–13 years in 2081–2100,

depending on the emission scenario (Seneviratne et al. 2012). These ranges correspond to the mean values for ensembles of climate models. Projections have to be treated with caution, however. Precipitation, the principal input signal to freshwater systems, is not simulated with adequate reliability in present-day climate models. Projected precipitation changes are model- and scenario-specific, and encumbered with very considerable uncertainty; hence, quantitative projections of changes in river flows at the river basin scale remain largely uncertain. These uncertainties therefore have to be taken into account in the planning process (e.g. of flood protection infrastructure of long lifetime) and in assessments of future vulnerability.