Adaptive capacity of the Pearl River Delta cities in the face of the growing flood risk: Institutions, ideas and interests

Although the cities in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) in China are amongst the world’s cities most exposed to flooding due to climate change, surprisingly little is done to address this problem. This article explores the barriers to the emergence of policies adapting to the growing flood risk in two PRD cities, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, underlining...

The Politics of Resilience in the Dutch ‘Room for the River’-project

An increased focus on the concept of resilience in flood protection has led to the development of a comprehensive flood protection strategy in the Netherlands which stresses the need to provide ‘Room for the River’ rather than building dykes. But how can a resilient solution in flood protection be successfully implemented? Using insights from...

Water Management on the Island of IJsselmonde 1000 to 1953: Polycentric Governance, Adaptation, and Petrification

One of the central tenets of adaptive management is polycentric governance. Yet, despite the popularity of the concept, few detailed case studies of polycentric governance systems exist. In this paper, we aim to partly fill this gap. We describe water management between the years 1000 and 1953 on the Dutch island of IJsselmonde in the...