Building adaptive capacity for flood proofing in urban areas through synergistic interventions

Few, if any urban areas are nowadays built in isolation from existing developments. Therefore, urban expansion and making existing urban areas more sustainable is a contemporary goal. There are major opportunities to do this through the ‘normal’ renewal of urban infrastructure and building stocks both now and in the future. However, significant...

Transition in governance of river basin management in The Netherlands through multi-level social learning

This paper presents a case study of a new adaptive, multi-level governance approach that supported a transition in river basin management in the Netherlands. The floods of 1993 and 1995 in the Netherlands triggered a paradigm shift in flood management. The 2.3 billion Euro flood safety programme Room for the River (RftR) was launched to increase...

A programme management approach for supporting a transition to integrated flood management in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands and many other developed countries, flood management is transitioning from sectoral engineering approaches to more integrated approaches. The 2.3 billion Euro Room for the River programme plays an important role in this transition, because it is the first large scale infrastructure programme in the Netherlands that breaks with...

Taming global flood disasters: lessons learned from Dutch experience

There is a growing international recognition that flood risk management in optima forma should be a programmed and flexible process of continuously improving management practices by active learning about the outcome of earlier and ongoing interventions and drivers of change. In the Netherlands, such a long-term, adaptive flood risk management...

Adaptive multi-level governance through social learning: River basin management in the Netherlands

This paper presents a case study of a new adaptive, multi-level governance approach for river basin management designed to stimulate social learning and to be adjusted based on lessons learnt and changing political and economical context. The floods of 1993 and 1995 in the Netherlands and climate change triggered a paradigm shift in flood...

Room for the River: International relevance

World-wide the frequency and impacts of flooding exhibit a steep increasing trend1. The key drivers are the world’s population growth and the increase of socio-economic activities (development) in flood-prone areas, and society’s growing interdependency on flood protection and drainage infrastructure of which a significant part is of unknown or...

Samenwerken aan maatwerk: Een slimme combinatie van proces en inhoud

Ruimte voor de Rivier, het grootste Nederlandse waterbouwproject sinds de Deltawerken, is in de uitvoeringsfase gekomen. Het programma is in 2007 van start gegaan en alle 34 projecten zijn nu in uitvoering. Deze brochure laat zien hoe het management van het programma zich heeft ontwikkeld en vooral welke factoren een rol in het succes hebben...

Future-Proofing Flood Risk Management: Setting the Stage for an Integrative, Adaptive, and Synergistic Approach