Due to population growth, a growing housing shortage, and a space shortage, it is expected that new urban developments in the Netherlands will mainly take place inside existing city boundaries and in high densities. At the same time, it is projected that the effects of climate change will increase, as climate change is expected to intensify. These two trends cause an increased climate risk for the liveability in these new urban areas. Climate adaptation is essential to reduce this risk. Climate adaptation planning is crucial to ensure the development of sustainable urban areas with high liveability standards for future and far-future inhabitants. However, traditional spatial design and -planning practice does not match with the climate adaptation task. If no climate adaptation action is taken now by spatial actors, the problems could be passed on to future generations. Hence, there is a need for a different way of working. A paradigm shift towards adaptive planning is needed to plan for climate adaptation and adaptive pathways are promising approaches to support this.

The objective of this research is to contribute to the search for new approaches that support climate adaptation planning. This research aims to investigate the usability of the Spatial Adaptive Policy Pathways (SAPP) approach for climate adaptation planning in new urban areas in the Netherlands. This research explores this approach to define the possibilities and points for improvement, through four main stages: analysis, identification, development, and application. To test the approach, Haven-Stad in Amsterdam has been selected as a case study area. The evaluation of the outputs and approach provide input to answer the main research question of this thesis: How can the Spatial Adaptive Policy Pathways approach support climate adaptation planning for new urban areas in the Netherlands?

The research has shown that the Spatial Adaptive Policy Pathways (SAPP) can support climate adaptation planning for new urban areas in the Netherlands. The SAPP approach brings forward a paradigm in which uncertainty is embraced and adaptivity is central. SAPPs do not show which trajectory is best to follow, but can address certain options, decision points, and consequences. In addition, it can bring different actors together through spatial- and governance elaborations. Thereby, SAPPs can form a basis for a broad dialogue about the future of an area in the short-term and long-term. It supports the development of adaptive designs and can address potential future governance challenges. The SAPP approach could thus be a promising approach to apply in practice. However, it would have to be further developed first.

Further development of the approach requires more testing at different case study locations and testing in practice. More research needs to be done on the applicability of the approach at different scales and the potential integration of scales and climate stresses.

In the Netherlands landscape and (agri)culture have always influenced each other and there is an inherent relationship between them. Through innovations over time, the province of South-Holland developed profitable productive food-landscapes which provided an important contribution to the Dutch food production and export, making the Netherlands one of the leading food-exporters worldwide.

However, the profit-oriented character of the productive landscape no longer fits well with the changing societal values, as the current pattern is destructive to the environment and people feel disconnected from the food production and the landscape. Society today does not only value profit, but also increasingly cares about the environment and social justice. The productive systems are locked into a path of environmental destruction and do not focus on the values of society, which show increased awareness of the importance of a healthy, diverse, environmental-friendly and inclusive approach towards future developments.

To resolve this mismatch between landscape and culture, this project aims to transform the current economic-driven food productive landscapes towards regenerative food landscapes that match with the values and needs of society today. To do so, this project starts from the perspective of the landscape, uses transition theory as a theoretical base, takes into account social justice, and investigates the spatial implications of regenerative development.
The results are a vision that foresees regenerative landscapes for South Holland and a strategy with interventions to reach this vision by 2050. Both the vision and the strategy take into account the three different types of food landscapes of South Holland: agriculture on clay soil, livestock and dairy production on peat soil, and horticulture in a mixed peri-urban environment. The regenerative landscapes will not only mitigate the effects of previous destructions but reverse them by a cooperative relation between man and nature . The landscapes will revitalize the province to sustain modern values and to restore the inherent relation between landscape and culture.