Introduction

The region of East Central Europe (ECE) – like all others – is prone to natural hazards including droughts, floods and landslides. There were devastating floods in the Oder valley in 1998, while the severe drought during 2000 caused heavy agricultural losses in the southern countries as well as forest fires that were particularly severe in Croatia. However, East Central Europe has also experienced major environmental dislocations through the process of economic development, and during the 1980s these amounted to a crisis which had a significant bearing on the chain of revolutions paving the way for the current transition. Although the literature gave considerable coverage to these matters at the time (especially the Chernobyl nuclear accident in the Soviet Union), no volume dealt systematically with environmental issues in each of the countries subject to a central planning system in the hands of totalitarian government.