Introduction
Tiachivska hromada (district) is situated in West Ukraine’s Zakarpatska oblast, which literally means “across the Carpathians”, stretching as it does across the country’s largest mountain range. Consisting of one city, Tiachiv, and four villages, the hromada had an estimated pre-war population of 19,378 as of January 2022. Tiachivska lies in the Tysa River basin, a subbasin of the Danube. The basin’s namesake runs through Tiachivska to the south, marking the border with Romania. The Terebysa River is on the western side of the hromada, and the Teresva River on its eastern side.
The presence of these rivers, along with geomorphological and hydrometeorological characteristics of the Carpathian region (e.g. type of land cover, elevation and topography, days of rainfall), leaves the hromada highly susceptible to flooding. The predominant land cover is tree cover, occupying 34% of the territory, though rangeland and cropland occupy 25.8% and 21.9% respectively (Map 1). Generally, tree cover and rangeland mitigate the extent of flooding by acting as barriers that can absorb increased river levels or overland flow.
These factors have resulted in three catastrophic flood events in 1998, 2001, and 2008 in Tiachivska and it is expected that major floods will reoccur in the future. Indeed, REACH’s 2024 Ukraine Nationwide Flood Risk Assessment found that the Carpathian region is more susceptible to flooding than other regions under the control of the Government of Ukraine as of 20 November 2023. Tiachivska ranked as the hromada with the third-highest flood risk level of government-controlled areas (Map 2). Generally, armed conflicts add an extra layer of complexity to natural hazard risk, leading to situations of double vulnerability, where the impacts of conflict and natural hazards can potentially exacerbate each other. This assessment found that the ongoing full-scale Russian invasion has indeed impacted flood resilience at the institutional and individual levels, reducing the capacity of authorities and households to mitigate and cope with flooding, as will be explored in more detail below. Furthermore, there is evidence from previous REACH assessments in Ukraine that security threats associated with the war, the presence of substantial IDP populations, and decreased tax revenues associated with a slowdown in economic activity, impact local authorities’ prioritisation of services and expenditure, with consequences for portfolios considered to be of lower priority, such as planning for natural hazards.
Calculating the flood risk level of Tiachivska was the first step to obtaining a comprehensive understanding of the flood risk profile of the hromada. This report delves further by assessing flood risk management capacities at the institutional and individual levels, firstly, to understand the hromada’s resilience to future flood events; and, secondly, to identify opportunities for strengthening area-specific flood risk management capacities in the context of conflict.