Poland is going to build €1.5bn worth of infrastructure to help prevent flooding or lessen its impact in the future, Infrastructure Minister Dariusz Klimczak said on September 25.

Poland has begun recovery from the disastrous flood that devastated several towns, villages, as well as infrastructure and agricultural land, mainly in the southwest of the country. The damage is likely to reach tens of billions of zloty, the government says.

The flood has now provided an impulse to the government to step up efforts to build more flood protections, such big reservoirs to contain high water in case a similar disaster happens again, which scientists say is increasingly likely due to a changing climate.

New investments will include a reservoir in the drainage area of the Vistula, Poland’s biggest river, with an aim to protect Krakow, a city of one million, against a possible flood. Another reservoir will be built in Kamieniec Zabkowicki in the southwest to add to existing protections.

The World Bank will co-finance the investments, Klimczak also said.

"I have been advocating for further investments in retention reservoirs and polders under a World Bank project. Representatives from the World Bank visited the proposed project sites in April,” Klimczak said.

The minister also said that repair work began on some of the damaged hydrotechnical infrastructure.

The flood has now spurred a debate on the best ways to prevent, or lessen the impact of, flooding. Experts say that infrastructure alone will not be enough and it will be necessary to work on nature-based solutions like the protection of forests and the renaturalisation of rivers.