Wave of aid after floods. A factual summary of support after the 2024 disaster.

The year 2024 brought flooding that exposed gaps in the flood risk management system. Heavy rainfall and river surges affected thousands of households, destroyed crops, buildings and local infrastructure. State aid was swift, but the need for intervention revealed that response mechanisms are still ad hoc.

Hundreds of millions of zlotys of support have been paid out. Special programs have been launched by the Agency for Restructuring and Modernization of Agriculture and the provincial governors, and legislative changes have been announced. However, has the scale of actions kept up with the scale of losses? Here is the balance of the year, which has forced an acceleration of action in flood control policy.

In September 2024, much of Poland struggled with the effects of flooding. The events caused serious damage to agriculture, infrastructure and housing. According to data collected by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the adverse weather events affected more than 72,000 farms on an area of more than 566,000 hectares, with losses estimated at nearly PLN 2.28 billion.

The cataclysm affected the southern provinces the most. In some municipalities, not only crops, but also production and residential infrastructure were completely destroyed. Beekeeping and fishing farms and horticultural nurseries were also affected by the losses. In response, the government launched a number of aid instruments, mainly through the ARMA.

Aid in numbers, or financial support for farmers

The scope of aid directed to affected agricultural producers in 2024 shows both the scale of losses and the need to differentiate support instruments depending on the type of damage. As the Agency for Restructuring and Modernization of Agriculture informed the editorial board, aid measures included not only standard grants and agricultural tax refunds, but also support conditioned by a threshold of lost crop production. The various mechanisms were implemented in separate calls for proposals, and their detailed course today allows us to analyze how specific tools translated into the level of support on the ground – both in the case of unharvested crops and material damage or lost production potential.

The aid included subsidies, refunds of the third and fourth installments of agricultural taxes, and support for producers whose losses exceeded 30 percent of annual crop production. Among other things, the ARMA conducted a call for applications for compensation for unharvested crops as part of the aid program following the September 2024 flood. Support totaling PLN 44.55 million went to nearly 2,000 farmers. The average amount per application was PLN 22.7 thousand.

Another call covered damage caused by heavy rains and floods. 155 decisions were issued with a total value of PLN 3.68 million. The average amount of funding was PLN 23.8 thousand. With regard to agricultural tax – more than 1.5 thousand farmers were granted support to the amount of PLN 5.77 million. In addition, in connection with the occurrence of such phenomena as hail, hurricane or frost – more than 18.3 thousand agricultural producers received assistance for a total amount of more than PLN 10 million.

In parallel with the aforementioned initiatives, calls for proposals for farms affected by damage to buildings, stock, machinery, bees, nursery trees and fishponds continued until April 16, 2025. The total pool of funds for public assistance in these areas was PLN 250 million.

Southern Poland – the scale of losses after the 2024 floods.

Although flood phenomena do not respect administrative boundaries, their effects always materialize in a specific local context – a specific area, social structure and existing governance mechanisms. A comparison of the situation in the Opole and Silesian provinces shows how differently the process of state intervention can proceed depending on the type of land use, degree of urbanization and institutional efficiency.

Where the natural disaster caused damage of greater scope and severity, support was comprehensive – including not only the agricultural sector, but also housing assistance, support for infrastructure reconstruction and funding for the restoration of public services. In contrast, in regions with smaller-scale losses, activities could be carried out with greater detail, although their administrative burden was by no means lighter. It is in the juxtaposition of such local conditions – the area of damage, the number of decisions, the spread of support tools and the total financial outlay – that the real picture of the institutional response to the 2024 flood is revealed.

The provincial office in Opole estimated that the value of losses in agriculture exceeded PLN 93.7 million, and the flood affected more than 10,000 hectares of crops. Assistance to residents in the form of targeted benefits for the repair and reconstruction of residential and farm buildings reached more than PLN 308 million. In addition, subsidies were provided for repairs to educational and municipal infrastructure. The Ministry of Finance provided a grant of PLN 13.4 million and provided funds of PLN 190 million for future investments.

In the Silesian province, according to the provincial governor, the flood covered 46 municipalities and led to damage in an area of about 3,746 hectares. The value of the damage was estimated at more than PLN 8.2 million. Residents received financial assistance amounting to 44.7 million zlotys, the largest part of which were repair, construction and emergency benefits. 205 agricultural damage protocols were confirmed.

Draft amendments to the flood law

In response to the events of 2024, the Council of Ministers adopted a draft amendment to the so-called Flood Law on April 15, 2025, which aims, according to information provided by the Ministry of Infrastructure, to introduce systemic solutions that will enable effective response to the effects of flooding, strengthen protection of areas at risk, and support flood victims. The new legislation provides for, among other things:

• Possibility for the Treasury to buy back damaged properties – owners of buildings that have been damaged to such an extent as to require demolition as a result of the floods will be able to inquire about buying back their properties. The funds thus obtained will allow them to move to safe areas. The areas after the buyout will be banned from development.
• Additional powers of the Polish Waters to buy back properties – it is planned to introduce a voluntary mechanism for the Polish Waters to buy back properties located in areas of special flood risk. This solution will be entirely voluntary – the owner will be able to take up the offer or reject it without any consequences. This measure will be aimed at reducing flood risk by moving development away from rivers.
• Strengthening oversight of zoning decisions – The Water Authority will be given additional tools to verify compliance with statutory obligations, particularly with regard to arrangements for zoning decisions in flood-prone areas.
• Streamlining the reconstruction and modernization of flood control infrastructure – the draft provides for procedural simplifications that will enable faster reconstruction of damaged flood control facilities and the ability to apply for EU funds for their implementation.

These are long-awaited changes, especially when it comes to strengthening the role of Watersheds in terms of real influence on land use planning.

Rapid assistance is not system readiness

The past months have taught an important lesson. Even if the state is able to mobilize hundreds of millions of zlotys in a flash, this does not mean that the system is working as it should. The disbursements were quick and needed, of that there is no doubt, but the speed of intervention cannot substitute for a long-term strategy that pins together emergency aid with urban planning or flood risk management tools.

The problem keeps coming back. As long as construction in floodplains is not only permitted, but sometimes even tacitly encouraged, even the best-constructed aid programs will not be able to compensate for losses. What’s missing is the short circuit: between location decisions, natural retention, hydrology, and what the public knows (or doesn’t know) about the risks.

This is not a new discovery, but the 2024 flood was a painful reminder of how fragile our preparedness is for the next effects of climate change. If we treat the flood solely as an anomaly, we run the risk that the next one, and there surely will be one, will surprise us just as much. Perhaps this disaster should be the final warning that change must happen now, not in the future, and that it should be a preparation, not an after-the-fact reaction.

MAIN PHOTO: Fototeo Piotr Bieniecki