The agricultural plains of Thessaly in Greece have been historically sensitive to flooding. These floods result in extreme socio-economic, spatial and environmental consequences, whose severity is heavily impacted by human actions manipulating the natural ecosystems of the region. Specifically, the extensive urbanization of Thessaly’s agricultural landscape – one of the main productive agricultural cores of Greece – combined with the anthropogenic alteration of the hydrological system to address the region’s water scarcity problem, are leading towards the appropriation and exhaustion of the water ecosystem. This has contributed to the extent of the negative consequences in extreme cases of flooding, such as this of September 2023, and to the system’s inability to cope, recover and adapt to these events. Therefore, there is an imperative need for the reconfiguration of the existing water and land management framework through transformative actions grounded on ecosystem-based adaptation (EbA) and nature-based solutions (NBS), in order to enhance the system’s adaptive capacity to flooding. An area near the Karla Reservoir is used as a case study. The proposed transformations both inform and are informed by local practices, and are supported by land policies, aiming to create an integrated framework for environmental co-management with the intention of activating a process of evolutionary resilience of the Thessalian plain to flooding.

This project proposes a new conceptual framework for understanding risk and its components and a methodological approach for defining how the conditions of different systems affect risk and contribute to the systems’ biophysical and socio-technical limits. A set of criticality and transformability criteria is defined to locate the crucial areas – the critical zones – with the potentiality of transformation. This process is executed by superimposing the biophysical and socio-technical limits and taking into account the current coping and recovery capacities as expressed by the current centralized processes and local adaptation practices. Then, a set of transformative actions is proposed, consisting of biophysical measures drawing from soil and landscape-related nature-based solutions and of socio-technical measures aiming to enhance the learning capacity and preparedness of the community. These actions are subsequently implemented in a critical zone adjacent to the Karla Reservoir, through strategic, systemic, sub-systemic and specific design explorations, with the aim to concretely spatialize the proposed measures by showcasing possible negotiations between agriculture, water and nature. Finally, an adaptation framework and phasing through adaptive design pathways showcases and evaluates the operability of the proposed transformation. The overall goal of the project is the creation of a successful model for environmental co-management, integrating coping, recovery and adaptive capacity, and resulting in fostering evolutionary resilience.

Nitrogen is an essential element of planetary life. Yet, human actions create such a surplus of its derivatives like ammonia (NH3) and nitrogen oxides (NOx) that the naturally occurring amounts doubled, causing a cascade of environmental and societal problems.
Our research studies dairy farming in North-West Europe with a focus on the Netherlands, as this industry is responsible for most nitrogen-related problems. The starting point of the project is the parliamentary letter ‘Nationaal Programma Landelijk Gebied’ (National Rural Area Program), which offers the alternatives of quitting, transforming or relocating dairy farms in areas where the nitrogen surplus exceeds critical loads. We reevaluated this approach using the methods of extreme scenarios, in-depth stakeholder analysis, as well as layering and clustering areas with high nitrogen deposition, pasture lands and socio-geopolitical issues. This led us to the realisation that a substantial spatial and societal transition is needed in order to reach balance again. The goal of this study is therefore to recalibrate the nitrogen cycle by radically changing current dairy production practices. We created a gradient from quitting to transforming farms and pastures, based on the theories of transitional landscapes and socially just transitions, resulting in a toolbox of eight strategic interventions, as well as a thorough policy framework. We choose a multi-scalar approach to test the new typologies, starting from the Netherlands, looking at the Groningen - Friesland - Drenthe region, further zooming in on the municipality of Ooststellingwerf, showing the phasing of the strategy from a human perspective. Essential lessons learned are the importance of collaboration on all scales, as well as the flexibility and openness towards change, whether it is technological or societal. Finally, based on these findings we extended our zoom to the scale of North-West Europe, giving suggestions to regions with similar problems.
This project describes a possible future based on our interpretation of the parliamentary letter, giving an intriguing input to decision makers on what their policies could mean, hoping to change the discourse regarding nitrogen, shifting its perception from pollution to a valuable resource. Welcome to Nitrotopia!