In Memoriam Professor Włodzimierz Pianka, prominent linguist, distinguished scholar in Slavic, Macedonian and Sorbian languages and in onomastics (with particular focus on the Balkan area), expert in Slavic confrontative grammar, professor at the Universities of Warsaw and Vienna, honorary doctor at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, member of the Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts. The paper outlines and profiles the late Professor’s life and work as well as research interests along with selected publications.

Uncertainties as to how the climate will change and how it will influence the necessities and trends of irrigation development lead to a number of serious questions to be answered in the near future. How irrigation and water systems will have to adapt to climate changes is a challenge that planners, designers and O&M services will have to cope with.

It is widely accepted that air temperature in Poland will increase of 2–4°C, however a total yearly precipitation will not vary yet its pattern during the year may change towards higher in winter and lower in summer. Evapotranspiration and crop water demand may rise due to both an increase in temperature and duration of crop growth cycles.

Three main factors are expected to exert an accelerating influence on the development of irrigation: increased frequency and intensity of droughts and long-lasting precipitation-free periods with the high insolation and high air temperatures resulting from climate change; the intensification of agricultural production (e.g. in horticulture, orchards, seed crops), being forced by both domestic and European free-market competition; the necessity of reaching high level of quality for the majority of agricultural products.

To mitigate negative effects of climate change and extreme events, appropriate adaptation methods and adaptation strategies should be developed and implemented in existing irrigation and water control systems. A number of technological and organisational steps should be taken to improve operation, management, administration and decision making processes.

The paper presents the example of performance-based analysis for the existing large-space steel structure raised in 1980s. Hall is used as a paper products warehouse. Advanced mechanical simulations are performed using Safir software. Factors that impact the final fire resistance of the structure are discussed. Local and global imperfections and possible ways of structure modelling are taken into account. For selected cases advanced fire scenario that considers both localised fire and possibility of further ignition of stored goods is prepared using Fire Dynamics Simulation software. The results obtained indicate that added imperfections have little impact on the fire resistance of the structure and older-type steel hall roof without any fire protection could survive 30 minutes of fire. Main failure modes and values of structure's deflections are also presented. Finally, performed simulations show that even for large-space structure the flashover is possible in some special cases.