Although resilience is widely embraced as a concept for adapting urbanised deltas, there is no planning method yet developed to operationalise resilience at the scale of urban development. The recently introduced adaptive pathway method allows stakeholders to consider a wide portfolio of adaptation actions including ‘sell-by dates’ (the time after which an adaptation action is no longer desirable or effective) and the potential to change from one action to another. This paper explores the applicability of this method for the planning of adaptive waterfront development by presenting the results of case study research in one of the flood-prone areas of Rotterdam. It is concluded that the method is effective to evaluate and select appropriate urban flood adaptation strategies. A weak aspect of the method, however, is that it relies on highly detailed information and the capacity of stakeholders to manage long-term pathways.