The role and potential of flood risk management in shaping land use – Flood-peak polders of the Tisza River from the perspective of integrated planning challenges

The dissertation follows an article-based PhD structure, where the summary text contextualizes and synthesizes the three articles of my PhD dissertation. These articles cover the scientific approach and results of separate project-based work carried out along the Tisza River in recent years. I have been involved in these projects as a project leader and analyst. At the Tisza River, the development of flood-peak polders (in line with the Further Development of the Vásárhelyi Plan Program – or VTT according to the Hungarian acronym) was a significant initiative in terms of flood management and rural development in the period 2000-2020, but the assessment of its results from a policy implementation perspective is not unanimous. The aim of the thesis is, among other things, to describe the scientific context of these partly successful (flood management) and partially unsuccessful (rural development, land-use change) results. I believe that without a coherent interpretation, no further progress can be expected in the related policy field, although the reasons for the partial failure will be key issues in the implementation of any climate policy goal requiring territorial adaptation. For this interpretation, I address the development process of the Tisza flood-peak polders through the perspective of Spatial Flood Risk Management (SFRM), an emerging approach. The thesis reflects on the issues that gave rise to it, its characteristics, and why and how it can be used to support the implementation of flood risk management projects that require the involvement of private land. This is one stream of the work. Another source of added value of the PhD thesis is that it contributes to understanding the impact of technological development on the potential conducting economic analyses. Technical advances in flood-risk mapping have now made it possible to apply a reliable cost-benefit- and, consequently, a provider-beneficiary approach to the organization of flood defense from a spatial perspective, which includes the value of ...