# Visualising the Relevance of Climate Change for Spatial Planning by the Example of Serbia
## 4 Discussion
Even though this research only shows the role of maps in spatial planning in Serbia, it indicates that maps are one of the visualisation tools that help professionals and stakeholders involved in decision making to realise which aspects of combating climate change have been included in a set of solutions and which have been omitted. The rapid increase in geographical information systems (GIS) is one of the signs that mapping different topics improves planning [80; 81; 82], implementation, and monitoring processes and that the interactive perspective of GIS is the next step that mapping climate change measures should take in Serbia and elsewhere. Since synthesis maps with an abundance of subjects are the most common characteristic of maps in spatialplanning, the application of the suggested methods tends to increase readability, which is relevant for experts' understanding and even more for non-professional stakeholders [83]. What we see from the cross-check of Table 3 and Figure 2 is that measures that address educating the population and other stakeholders about climate change, establish new protection areas, deal with wastewater treatment, create planning and strategic documents for extreme weather events, and monitor climate change-related parameters by introducing new meteorological stations and instruments would have an impact on all climate change effects--floods, droughs, hail storms, heat waves, landslides and premature snow melting. Five types of interventions--afforestation, building dams, establishing notification and warning systems, organizing civil protection, and financial support to farmers for the introduction of protection systems (e.g., anti-hail nets, drainage systems) or reimbursement in the case of damage due to extreme weather events--tackle five out of six climate change effects. They also have diverse impacts on different fields of climate change effects. Drainage systems, correcting river courses, sandbag dykes, and alterations of terrain slopes are measures influencing only one climate change effect--flooding. However, selecting priority measures should be made with caution because, for example, floods are the most common effect of climate change in Serbia [61] ([PERSON] et al. 2022); hence, it would not be wise to disregard them. Survey results collected by [PERSON] et al. [61] (2022) indicate that citizens in the rural areas of Serbia suffer the most from (1) drought, (2) flooding, and (3) hail, and less from (4) heat waves, (5) landslides, and (6) premature snow melting. This gradation does not completely coincide with the gradation of climate change-effect measures incorporated in the analysed spatial plans, and the differences indicate aspects that are changing. According to Figure 2, floods are considered more comprehensively in spatial-planning documents than drought, and hail is only considered after heat waves and landslides. If we compare the Spatial Plan of the Republic of Serbia for 2010-2020 with the new one for the period of 2021-2035 [84], which is in the adoption process, we will see that the presence of climate change measures is strengthened in the new document (Figure 4), although their prioritization per effect remains the same. The least considered effect in the plans of both generations is the premature melting of snow, which is in contrast to the efforts of Alpine countries to socio-economically adapt to climate change--looking for a solution to prevent avalanches or prolong the skiing season [25] ([PERSON] 2007). The reason behind this might be the fact that the majority of households in Serbia still depend prevailingly on agriculture instead of tourism. Therefore, premature snow melting is not considered to be a particular threat to the economy or health. Figure 4: Comparison of the spatial plans of the Republic of Serbia. Furthermore, applying the recommended visualisation methods to Serbia's spatial-planning documents has revealed a noticeable increase in awareness regarding climate change mitigation over the analysed period (2010 to 2023).