The co-creation of knowledge through a process of mutual learning between scientists and societal actors is an important avenue to advance science and resolve complex problems in society. While the value and principles for such transdisciplinary water research have been well established, the power and empowerment dimensions continue to pose a challenge, even more so in international processes that bring together participants from the Global North and Global South. We build on earlier research to combine known phases, activities, and principles for transdisciplinary water research with a negotiated approach to stakeholder empowerment. Combining these elements, we unpack the power and empowerment dimension in transdisciplinary research for peri-urban groundwater management in the Ganges Delta. Our case experiences show that a negotiated approach offers a useful and needed complement to existing transdisciplinary guidelines. Based on the results, we identify responses to the power and empowerment challenges, which add to existing strategies for transdisciplinary research. A resulting overarching recommendation is to engage with power and politics more explicitly and to do so already from the inception of transdisciplinary activities as a key input for problem framing and research agenda setting.@en

Policy of Multi-Actor Systems is an introduction into the art of craft of problem exploration and problem structuring. It positions policy analysis as a scientific discipline focused on systems analysis in a multi-actor context to support better informed decision-making. The approach presented in this book is considered to be the cornerstone of the curricula of the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management of Delft University of Technology and underlies the research on (the governance of) socio-technical systems. Systems thinking applied in a multi-actor environment and its inherent multi-disciplinary character is what makes this work stand out from traditional hard- and soft systems approaches. The core of the book is dedicated to systems analysis, actor- or stakeholder-analysis and discusses methods for dealing with uncertainty. These analytical activities combined lead to a rich problem description and to plans for further research. Due to the stepwise approach this book serves as a basis for any problem analysis both for our bachelor and master students, our alumni worldwide and any interested practitioners.@en

To deal with large uncertainties about future climate and socio-economic developments, planners in deltas are adopting an integrative and adaptive planning approach referred to as Adaptive Delta Management (ADM). Bangladesh has used the ADM approach for the development of its adaptive plan; Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100 (BDP 2100). The success of policy strategies in an adaptive delta plan critically depends on a specific adaptation of livelihoods of local communities (Community Livelihood Adaptation; CLA), especially in an agriculture-oriented society like Bangladesh. For example, while triple rice cropping might be evaluated as a robust strategy in all futures considered, its success eventually depends on whether farmers’ will actually make that choice, which is deeply uncertain. In this paper, we use literature review, insights from interviews and field observations to examine how the uncertainty in CLA impacts (adaptive) delta management. We study two historical cases of livelihood adaptation of farmer communities confronted with salinization and waterlogging in the polders of southwest Bangladesh since the 1960s. We conclude that historically the uncertainty about CLA in polders has been ignored in the development of policy plans, leading to the failure of anticipated policy outcomes. We recommend planners in Bangladesh and other deltas worldwide to take account of CLA as uncertainty when developing long-term adaptive plans.

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In this publication, we share our experiences with combining transdisciplinary research with the Negotiated Approached to address the challenges in groundwater management in peri-urban villages near Khulna, Bangladesh and near Kolkata, India. From 2014 – 2019, our team of researchers and civil society organizations has been executing the Shifting Grounds project. The project was developed as a transdisciplinary research project under the Urbanising Deltas of the World programme of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). The Negotiated Approach, an approach for community empowerment, was used to combine research with capacity development within peri-urban communities. In this report, we capture our experiences as an interdisciplinary and international team, covering successes as well as challenges we faced in the process. @en

Delta communities worldwide are facing a multitude of challenges in their life and livelihood. In many developing countries, improving the quality of life and livelihood is a key challenge. While development is a central goal of delta planning in such countries, the effectiveness of planning is challenged by uncertain changes in climate and socio-economy. Bangladesh (one of the countries) is moving towards the adaptive delta management approach to deal with such uncertainties. Historical examples illustrate that Community Livelihood Adaptation (CLA) can critically influence the effectiveness of a policy strategy. Therefore, there is a clear need to explore CLA under uncertainty. For that purpose, this paper develops and applies a conceptual model-based approach combining the mental model and scenarios techniques. Our approach starts by using a participatory process to elicit mental models a farmers’ community uses when considering adaptation decisions; we capture these in the form of a cognitive map, and this map can serve as a conceptual model for analyzing livelihood adaptation decision-making in a future-oriented scenario analysis. To illustrate the approach, a case study of cropping decision-making of farmers community at a polder location under the saline condition in the southwest of Bangladesh has been elaborated. Results show that the approach is useful in structuring the cognitive and qualitative nature of complex decision-making process, and helps in understanding the dynamic interactions of farmers’ adaptation decisions with other actors, their environmental attributes, and market traits. It can help policymakers anticipate the adaptation direction of policy strategies.@en

Peri-urban areas in the global south are experiencing over-exploitation and contamination of water resources as a result of rapid urbanisation. These problems relate to the ineffectiveness of the underlying institutions in this dynamic, multi-actor context. Institutions need to be considered during problem solving; however, peri-urban communities have limited insight into their institutional context. This research examines the extent to which problem solving capacity can be improved through gaming-simulation methods. A game-based approach is tested in a capacity building workshop with peri-urban communities in Khulna (Bangladesh). A role-playing game designed from game theory models is used to examine local drinking water problems through an institutional lens. Workshop evaluation shows that through role-play, participants learned about strategies in drinking water supply (in both the current and future scenarios) and about the potential to address water quality issues through cooperative groundwater monitoring. Results also show improved problem understanding with regards to institutions, actor strategies, and problem-solving constraints. Participants valued the interactive medium for comparing and evaluating strategies. This paper highlights limitations in game design and its implementation, and offers ways to address this in future applications. @en

Several model-based, analytical approaches have been developed recently to deal with the deep uncertainty present in situations for which futures studies are conducted. These approaches focus on covering a wide variety of scenarios and searching for robust strategies. However, they generally do not take the multiplicity of stakeholder perspectives into account in analytic terms, which could bring in diverse opinions and views, not only on possible futures but also on values and interests. In this study, we present an approach to incorporate stakeholder perspectives into model-based scenarios for exploring the future dynamics of the Dutch gas sector. The results demonstrate that the scenario space can be demarcated according to the perspectives. This allows for a systematic comparison of the perspectives and provides a basis for identification of robust strategies. Also, the analysis shows that incompatible elements between the model and perspectives, or within perspectives can be identified. This provides insights about the problem complexity and potential barriers to the futures envisioned by the perspectives. Future research can strengthen this approach by involving stakeholders in modelling and in the model-based representation of the perspective narratives to enhance learning and credibility, and can extend the analysis to identify (socially) robust policies.

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Community operational research (COR) helps local stakeholders address complex messy problems related to public goods. Many of these problems feature an institutional dimension, whereby institutions refer to rules that structure behaviour and interactions in society. If a sound analysis of this institutional dimension is limited in scope, or even completely absent, then the result is an incomplete problem understanding or a narrower solution space. In this paper, we outline a COR approach for participatory institutional analysis of local problems aimed at enhancing problem formulation and solution-finding efforts. The process has four main steps: problem identification, institutional system mapping, strategic analysis, and strategy exploration. This approach is applied to the issue of water supply in a marginalized, peri urban village near Khulna city, Bangladesh. Our paper discusses the results achieved thus far, and we argue that our analytical framework and methods prove to be promising for this peri urban application. However, their use with local stakeholders requires an intensive process of two-way capacity building between communities and analysts, developing a joint understanding of both local problems and key components/mechanisms in institutional development.

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Dike reinforcement decision making under uncertainty is a challenging task. This paper examines whether increasing the managerial flexibility of a reinforcement strategy can improve the lifecycle cost-effectiveness for the Dutch flood defences. Two flexible strategies are developed and compared to an inflexible baseline strategy. The strategies are examined in eight case studies, two sea level rise scenarios, and four discount rates. It is shown that increasing the flexibility of reinforcement can improve the cost-effectiveness for monofunctional dikes. The relative cost-effectiveness of flexible strategies decreases as the dike becomes multifunctional. The results prove to be sensitive to the choice of the scenario and discount rate. It is concluded that reinforcement decision making should address uncertainty explicitly and account for smaller scale developments around the dike. It is suggested that current engineering practice can be improved if the possibility of a variable design lifetime is also addressed in reinforcement decision making.@en

Multifunctional use of flood defences is seen as a promising solution for improving the synergy between flood protection and urban development. Combining the functions can, however, create unintended dependencies, which can influence the desired performance of the system in unexpected ways. Recognising the risks associated with these dependencies early during the conceptual design phase can help to improve the system capability to mitigate the resulting threats and to take advantage of the opportunities created. This paper examines the use of the ‘Functional Resonance Analysis Method’ (FRAM) for qualitative risk analysis of multifunctional flood defences. The method is customised and applied to a case study of a multifunctional flood defence in the Netherlands. The analysis results are used to identify the threats and opportunities that need attention during the design of a multifunctional flood defence and to propose recommendations for how to address them. It is concluded that FRAM can serve as a useful complement to the reliability analysis methods for enriching the risk analysis of multifunctional flood defences.@en

Over the past centuries, numerous examples of what we now call multifunctional flood defenses (MFFDs) have emerged in the Netherlands, ranging from houses or even entire villages built on polder dikes, to large scale developments in urban areas like Rotterdam, Dordrecht and Scheveningen. These developments were not planned as such, but emerged as a consequence of often-unforeseen events. @en

Flexibility is often proposed as a valuable capability to cope with uncertainty and change. However, there is no consensus about what constitutes flexibility across the literature. A review of publications on flood management, real options and manufacturing reveals remarkable commonalities along with substantial inconsistencies in the use of flexibility. These observations are used for structuring the discussion of flexibility in this paper. A framework is proposed in the form of four self-consistent and step-wise questions: (Q1) why is flexibility needed; (Q2) what is it that flexibility is required for; (Q3) what are the dimensions of flexibility; (Q4) what needs to change or be adapted? In order to answer the questions in the context of multifunctional flood defences (MFFDs), eight characteristic features of flexibility in connection with the four questions are distilled from the synthesized publications. Subsequently, a working definition of flexibility is developed. An illustrative case study examines the framework’s potential for the development of a MFFD. It is shown that the iterative use of the framework can serve as a guideline for identifying and evaluating flexibility for MFFDs. The paper ends with some challenges for future research.

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Transdisciplinary science transcends disciplinary boundaries. The reasons to engage in transdisciplinary science are many and include the desire to nurture a more direct relationship between science and society, as well as the desire to explain phenomena that cannot be explained by any of the existing disciplinary bodies of knowledge in isolation. Both reasons also reinforce each other, as reality often features a level of complexity that demands and inspires the combination of scientific knowledge from various disciplines. The challenge in transdisciplinary science, however, is not so much to cross disciplinary boundaries, but to ensure an effective connection between disciplines. This contribution reports on the strategy used in a transdisciplinary research project to address groundwater management in peri-urban areas in the Ganges delta. Groundwater management in peri-urban areas in rapidly urbanizing deltas is affected by diverse forces such as rapid population growth, increased economic activity and changing livelihood patterns, and other forces which result in a growing pressure on available groundwater resources. Understanding the intervention possibilities for a more sustainable groundwater management in these peri-urban areas requires an understanding of the dynamic interplay between various sub-systems, such as the physical groundwater system, the water using activities in households and livelihoods, and the institutional system of formal and informal rules that are used by various parties to access groundwater resources and to distribute the associated societal and economic costs and benefits. The ambition in the reported project is to contribute both new scientific knowledge, as well as build capacity with peri-urban stakeholders to improve the sustainability and equitability of local groundwater management. This is done by combining science and development activities, led by different organizations. The scientific component further consists of three sub-components. The connection between these scientific disciplines is made by using a multi-polar strategy. Each research works with a different framework rooted in its own scientific discipline, featuring its own concepts and theories: a hydrogeological framework, a sustainable livelihoods framework and an institutional development framework. Rather than forcing these frameworks into a new framework that is perhaps only fit for the purpose of this single research, the disciplinary frameworks are left in-tact, but are connected by a translation of key variables from one framework to the other. Often, what is an exogenous variable in one framework, is endogenous in another, and vice versa. Investigating the connections between these different poles would require an integrating perspective, for which again different scientific integration perspectives will be explored, rooted in different scientific traditions. The poster will present this framework and the initial findings and experiences with this transdisciplinary research strategy. @en