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Various studies indicate that the frequency and intensity of pluvial flooding, groundwater flooding, drought and heat stress will increase in The Netherlands. This is why it is important for Dutch municipalities to have a method for the assessment of vulnerability. However, vulnerability is not directly measurable. Methods to assess the vulnerability of urban areas to climate change are either qualitative and not informative enough or too costly, specific, or complex, and therefore they are not often applied by municipalities. The Adaptation Tipping Point (ATP) method is a promising method that helps municipalities to determine the urgency of climate change adaptation. It comprises assessment of ATPs: “the point where the magnitude of climate change is such that the current management strategy will no longer meet the objectives” (Kwadijk et al., 2010, p.730). In this thesis, the ATP-method is pre-tested as a method for vulnerability assessment in Rotterdam-Noord and a part of Nijmegen. These case studies, together with past experiences based on literature research, suggest that the method is - in principle - suitable for use as a way of assessing vulnerability by municipalities. It provides useful information in addition to traditional top-down impact and damage assessments. However, more research into improving the feasibility of the ATP-method, for example through estimation of ATPs on the basis of either rules of thumb or expert judgement, is necessary to make the method practically feasible. In addition, the application of the method to the theme of pluvial flooding is a proof of principle; it needs to be applied to the themes of groundwater flooding, drought and heat stress on municipal level as well.

In this report the results are presented of the graduation project to decrease social vulnerability with a design solution. The project was executed for the design agency BOOG in collaboration with Stichting DOEN. The graduation project is the final part of the master Design for Interaction at Delft University of Technology. Social vulnerability refers to a dynamic situation where people suffer from the lack of contacts and support, they do not experience social satisfaction. While their problems pile up they can get feelings of loneliness and eventually they can get socially isolated. In social vulnerability the balance between strength and burden is disturbed. People who experience social vulnerability have problems coping with the current situation and difficulties communicating, but are clearly dependent on others. They do not have their life on the role and have little to no influence on this situation. This makes them unhappy. The challenge for this project is to create a design that does not stigmatize the people in need of a solution. If the design is stigmatizing people will almost certainly not want to use the product. A life changing event can have a big influence on the social network. Multiple factors are involved to positively influence the new situation, such as personality and the living environment. As a designer it is possible to influence the environment to improve the living climate, increase the feeling of safety and connectedness with the environment, which can decrease social vulnerability. The group of social vulnerable people is very diverse and has different graduations of isolation. The decision was made to focus on people above 50 without a life partner who just went through a life changing event. This group needs support to prevent degeneration of the situation without the need for support from professionals. Nowadays interventions to decrease social vulnerability involve personal support, strategic advice, activities and service to provide people with the necessary information. Unfortunately many of these solutions confirm people’s vulnerability, therefore it will not reach the target group of this project. A solution needs to be generated that is accepted and can be used by both socially strong and vulnerable people and still has a positive effect on social vulnerability. Trends and developments reveal that trust in government is decreasing and the pressure on healthcare is increasing due to the ageing society and financial cut backs. This inspires people to start searching for solutions closer to home which they can influence themselves: a bottom-up approach. While professional support is often perceived as top-down and stigmatizing, the bottom-up approach is not and therefore very suitable to help the target group back on track. To improve the wellbeing of socially vulnerable people social connections need to be established. To establish social connections people need to meet others in person. This means that socially vulnerable people need to increase their exposure by getting out of their house more often with an open attitude to be able to approach and be approached by other people. The target group for this project is not capable of improving the situation on their own, they need to be supported to influence the situation in a positive way. This support needs to subtly activate them to start looking for new possibilities that can improve the situation. The interaction that is used to achieve this subtle activation is resembled by a gentle push on a swing. It supports people to get moving and gives them the tools to continue moving on their own. In a bottom-up approach it is very important to keep people motivated to actively participate. This motivation can be derived from people’s natural motivation to do good and be altruistic. Performing acts of kindness is a way of doing good. In this project the act of kindness that was searched for needed to have a low threshold to make it possible for the target group to join in. The act of kindness that was selected for this is the sharing magazines with other people living in the same apartment building. Giving away one of your magazines is an act of kindness, one is doing another person a favour by letting him or her enjoy the reading material as well. Becoming aware that such a small gesture can make other people happy provides the target group with new confidence that is necessary to get out of the vulnerable situation. It also provides a certain level of exposure: by sharing a magazine one shows what topic interests him. Becoming aware of the people with similar interests can lower the threshold of approaching them. Since many vulnerable people tend to stay in or close to their own living environment meeting new people nearby is an important step towards social contact. By performing acts of kindness and connecting with (the people in) the environment people’s attitude is opening up and that is exactly what is necessary to start looking for new possibilities to improve the situation to decrease social vulnerability.

This resarch thesis focuses on vulnerability of societies in low lying coastal and deltaic environments to tropical cyclonic storms and floods. Models that explore vulnerability under various planned and unplanned conditions hardly exist. Within the Andhra Pradesh Cyclone Hazard Mitigation Project an Expert Decision Support System was designed and implemented linking coastal vulnerability to integrated coastal zone management. This model development provided unique material and experience for this PhD research. The interpretation and critical inquiry of the model has led to new knowledge on the design of such a model as well as on the use of its results in reducing vulnerability through planning.

Research done by the IPCC working groups and other organizations has sparked global concern over the possible impacts of climate change and corresponding sea level rise upon coastal communities. In reaction global studies were done (Nicholls et al., 2008, Hanson et al., 2011) to assess the vulnerability of coastal regions. However, most of these publications did not address the development of climate adaptation designs to protect the coastline. In this study it is demonstrated how a localized coastal vulnerability assessment could guide the development of conceptual designs in an African context. The overall aim of this thesis is the appraisal of climate adaptation measures and coastal management strategies for Durban, South Africa. The main focus is on an illustrative case study, for a coastal section along Durban´s central beaches. The case study is an example of how the vulnerability to coastal hazards could be assessed, for different SLR scenarios, to provide guidance for developing conceptual coastal protection designs. The March 2007 storm event (estimated to have a one in 50 year return period) indicated that significant damage can be sustained from coastal hazards in Durban at the current conditions. A one in 100 year storm is shown to already affect the operations of critical infrastructure in current conditions such as the beach road in the vulnerability assessment. The vulnerability increases significantly for future SLR scenarios. Softer, sediment based protection solutions were preferred for the case study due to the environmental, recreational and touristic requirements of the beachfront. Protection solutions developed for the two SLR scenarios give an idea of the footprint of different options and how easily the can be adapted to higher water levels. The vulnerability assessment and proposed protection solutions could be used as a basic tool for budgeting and long term spatial planning as it gives indicative costs and an idea about the areas that could potentially be at risk to coastal hazards. Developing a generic vulnerability assessment methodology could be beneficial for local municipalities. Completing similar vulnerability assessment studies (or more detailed studies) at other vulnerable coastal locations is a recommended starting point for the climate adaptation process and to inform global vulnerability and adaptation studies. Local governments are recommended to gather local data, assess vulnerability, propose a strategy to deal with future SLR scenarios and develop protection solutions for critical areas.

There is a growing awareness that road networks, are becoming more and more vulnerable to unforeseen disturbances like incidents and that measures need to be taken in order to make road networks more robust. In order to do this the following questions need to be addressed: How is robustness defined? Against which disturbances should the network be made robust? Which factors determine the robustness of a road network? What is the relationship between robustness, travel times and travel time reliability? Which indicators can be used to quantify robustness? How can these indicators be computed? This paper addresses these questions by developing a consistent framework for robustness in which a definition, terms related to robustness, indicators and an evaluation method are included. By doing this, policy makers and transportation analyst are offered a framework to discuss issues that are related to road network robustness and vulnerability which goes beyond the disconnected definitions, indicators and evaluation methods used so far in literature. Furthermore, the evaluation method that is presented for evaluating the robustness of the road network against short term variations in supply (like incidents) contributes to the problem of designing robust road networks because it has a relatively short computation time and it takes spillback effects and alternative routes into account.

Transport networks in major urban areas are becoming more and more vulnerable to unforeseen disturbances in transport networks, like incidents. For the near future, we expect an increasing number of incidents with a large impact due to the overall increase of the traffic load. In this paper the hypothesis is tested that, if no measures are taken, the impact of incidents increases in the future and, therefore, the vulnerability of the road network increases. It is shown that the current network of the area The Hague-Rotterdam in the Netherlands is already vulnerable. If the demand increases, the increase in total travel time is more than linear with the increase in demand in the situation without an incident. The impact of incidents also increases when the level of demand increases. This results in the overall conclusion that it is necessary to make the road network more robust.

This thesis tells a story of today, of Mexico City, and a plan for a desirable future for the Municipality of Valle de Chalco, an informal settlement affected by the metropolitan mismanagement of water resources. Today uneven developments dominate in Mexico City Metropolitan Area, a result of a Neoliberal urbanization process. The current urban reality is the result of the unbalanced power relations between the city makers that priorities the city core and the city dwellers that are pushed into urban poverty towards peripheral areas. Those areas are not perceived as part of the city and therefore experience water related problems: flooding and lack of basic services such as safe water supply and sanitation. The Neoliberal policies in the urban process had emphasized the class polarization of the citizens. Valle de Chalco Solidaridad at the south-east periphery of the city is a fine example of a marginalized society in struggle. Moreover, the rapid population growth has led human interventions to affect natural processes and contribute to the growing destruction of natural ecosystems. The story of the natural ecosystems coevolves with the story of the development of Mexico City’s settlement. The human story intersects with that of nature. Until today humans had gain at the expense of nature, which moves ineluctably towards ecological disequilibrium. Current risks of flooding and fresh water scarcity that Mexico City Metropolitan Area is facing will increase if the denial for interaction between the city and water continues. A city that once was an island in complete synergism with water needs to learn how to live with it again and create opportunities from the interaction with it. The desirable is a win-win situation in which harmony between humans and their natural environment is re-established.

The high level complexity of today’s supply chains, their strive for ever increasing efficiency, and their global structure have rendered supply risk management more important than ever, forcing companies to start taking measures against supply chain vulnerabilities, especially on the inbound side. A great deal of the risks on the inbound side of a firm is caused by the inability of a supplier to provide the purchasing company with the raw materials demanded. Given these conditions, SABIC in Europe is interested in adopting a risk management approach on its entire supply base. To provide a solution to this problem, this research has been conducted in the form of a single case study facilitated by the European Procurement Department of SABIC in Europe, backed up by an extensive literature review. The outcome of the project is a 3-step raw materials business continuity plan: identification of critical raw materials, identification and assessment of supplier risk sources, and identification of suitable risk reduction methods.

In the master thesis ‘A Project for Valencia’ I observed the strategic spatial planning changes and a vast development of Valencian large urban projects in the last 20 years. Subsequently I estimated the effects of such processes in the current times of economy recession and real estate development stagnation and from my findings and observations I identified two main problems, which I have researched in my thesis: - Unequal distribution of public gains from the large urban projects in Valencia. - Emerging spatial problems of social vulnerability. In order to cope with the mentioned main problems, I developed a strategy which reveals the possibilities of stimulating the stagnant real estate development and proposes intervention projects in order to capture the synergy of the existing and future large urban projects. In addition, these interventions improve the spatial conditions of socially vulnerable areas and directly benefit the locals and their living quality. Two key intervention projects were studied in more detail and a design proposal for them was proposed. This made it possible to open up a discussion of the actual development possibilities even in the times of the economic scarcity and real estate market stagnation. Participation and cooperation of the local public authorities, third party investors and local inhabitants was engaged towards the processes of urban growth.

Climate change, urbanisation and land subsidence increase the vulnerability of urban areas to flooding and droughts. Despite the availability of reliable and cost effective technologies, the actual implementation remains limited to small scale demonstration projects. Part 1 of this thesis describes how innovations in urban water management can contribute to reduce the vulnerability of cities. Examples are the use of local water resources, the urban surface water as energy source and floating urbanization. Next to showing the technical feasibility, observations are made from the perspective of an action researcher on factors that contribute to the application and mainstreaming of these innovations. Part 2 of this thesis complements the case study specific view ‘from the inside’ with a perspective ‘from the outside’. To unravel the mechanisms of technology application in urban water management this study included a literature survey, in-depth interviews, discussions, seminars, workshops and a national web-based survey on innovation among urban water managers. This thesis brings together the results of these activities. The study identifies two key conditions for application of urban water innovations in practice. The first condition is including urban water management innovations in spatial planning and development. The second condition is stakeholder receptivity to urban water management innovations. This thesis contains multiple recommendations to improve application of innovations in urban water management. It is relevant for scientists, engineers, designers and policy makers in urban water management.

Worldwide, there is a need to enhance our understanding of vulnerability and to develop methodologies and tools to assess vulnerability. One of the most important goals of assessing coastal flood vulnerability, in particular, is to create a readily understandable link between the theoretical concepts of flood vulnerability and the day-to-day decision-making process and to encapsulate this link in an easily accessible tool. This article focuses on developing a C astal City Flood Vulnerability Index (CCFVI) based on exposure, susceptibility and resilience to coastal flooding. It is applied to nine cities around the world, each with different kinds of exposure. With the aid of this index, it is demonstrated which cities are most vulnerable to coastal flooding with regard to the system’s components, that is, hydro-geological, socio-economic and politico-administrative. The index gives a number from 0 to 1, indicating comparatively low or high coastal flood vulnerability, which shows which cities are most in need of further, more detailed investigation for decision-makers. Once its use to compare the vulnerability of a range of cities under current conditions has been demonstrated, it is used to study the impact of climate change on the vulnerability of these cities over a longer timescale. The results show that CCFVI provides a means of obtaining a broad overview of flood vulnerability and the effect of possible adaptation options. This, in turn, will allow for the direction of resources to more in-depth investigation of the most promising strategies.

Floods are one of the most common and widely distributed natural risks to life and property worldwide. An important part of modern flood risk management is to evaluate vulnerability to floods. This evaluation can be done only by using a parametric approach. Worldwide there is a need to enhance our understanding of vulnerability and to also develop methodologies and tools to assess vulnerability. One of the most important goals of assessing flood vulnerability is to create a readily understandable link between the theoretical concepts of flood vulnerability and the day-to-day decision-making process and to encapsulate this link in an easily accessible tool.