The Delta Program states that the Netherlands must be climate-resilient and water-robust by 2050, posing a great challenge to spatial planning. This imminent challenge of climate adaptation requires a common ground of interdisciplinary approach as monodisciplinary reductionist approaches are often not enough to deal with complex phenomena such as climate change.
In this context, combining information models can support well-informed design decisions, since many interventions related to climate adaptation, such as those related to water storage, soil infiltration and underground spatial management, require a deeper knowledge of subsurface characteristics and configurations.
However, this interdisciplinary approach still face many organizational, technological and institutional barriers, related to inherent characteristics of design and geoinformatics in combination with practical challenges related to standardization and interface of existing products. There has not been yet an integrated approach that relates subsurface information models and local climate adaptation design interventions in a single place even if literature and design examples suggest information needs.
This thesis aims to explores how subsurface information models, in particular 3D ones, can aid the cause of concrete well-informed urban climate adaptation design interventions, identifying the reasons for an under use of existing subsurface data models and assessing existing subsurface information models, both in 2D and 3D, to better understand what are the information requirements for climate adaptation design interventions in the Netherlands.
As climate adaptation can often be a broad concept, this research opted to focus on concrete examples of standards for climate adaptation in urban design, coming from the Leidraad 2.0, the Maatlat, and the Klimaateffectatlas. The interventions used for the design analysis are also standardized and refer to a document published by the Dutch government containing the twenty five most relevant climate adaptation design interventions in the Netherlands.
The study of these interventions, standards, and models, along with the study of their interdependence, indicate information needs for local climate adaptation design.
Therefore, this thesis provides both theoretical and practical foundations for better integrating subsurface data models into standardized urban design practices for climate adaptation. As a result of this research, a tangible tool named CLIMACAT is developed. CLIMACAT integrates pre-existing subsurface information models in accordance with FAIR data principles: ensuring findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability. Subsequently, both the tool and the established information models undergo testing via design proposals across four neighborhoods within the city of Utrecht. ... Read more

The Netherlands, and in particular South–Holland, is to a large extent below sea level, making the region vulnerable to environmental challenges linked to climate change. According to IPCC, a sea-level rise of two to five metres is not excluded, while the Delta committee advised the government recently to not invest in new infrastructure in the west of the Netherlands, due to a high risk of flooding.

This project proposes a vision for the cultural and economic adaptation of the province of South–Holland in a scenario of a three-metre sea-level rise in 2100. Exploring the historical Dutch approach to water management, the project believes that adaptability can be achieved through a cultural shift in that approach. A shift is realised using education and stakeholder strategies from fighting the water to opening the dikes and adapting to it. Through research by design and vice versa, a new delta landscape was shaped, strengthening the existing potential of the area. The potentials lay in environmental, economic, and cultural aspects of the area. The future environment is not only adaptive but also a desirable living environment for humans and non-humans.

The result of this project is a better understanding of how a more circular economy approach can be an adaptation tool to the irremediable consequences of sea-level rise in delta landscapes, using the South Holland region as a case study. By exploring the consequences and further adaptation to this new scenario spatially, this project is an example and a trigger for other delta landscapes to explore the different challenges that they will face, presenting a possible and desirable future.

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