In recent years, the escalating frequency of droughts due to climate change has made the prospect of more frequent droughts increasingly tangible. Effective water management during these periods is paramount, as it involves balancing water demand with limited supply. Water distribution models are instrumental in this regard, aiding decision-makers in preparing for and mitigating the impacts of drought and water scarcity.

This study aims to investigate how water distribution models align with the interests of key stakeholders, particularly during droughts. Using the Quick Water Allocation Scan Tool (QWAST) by Deltares as a case study, the research explores how water is allocated during droughts in the Netherlands. Through literature review and stakeholder interviews, the study examines the values underlying stakeholders' water demands and their perspectives on water-related issues.

Four main sectors with distinct water demands are identified: agriculture, inland shipping, drinking water, and nature conservation. While efforts are made to balance water demand across these sectors, challenges arise during droughts when each stakeholder seeks to protect its interests. Despite the expectation of value conflicts, stakeholders generally acknowledge the need for balance.

However, closer examination reveals challenges in water allocation during droughts, particularly regarding the adequacy of QWAST. The tool primarily focuses on surface water, overlooking groundwater, which is crucial during droughts. Each sector has specific water quality and quantity requirements, leading to a complex set of claims and challenges in water allocation.

While stakeholders share overlapping values, QWAST is considered incomplete in addressing drought management and water distribution effectively. Stakeholders question its relevance as a water allocation tool, especially considering its limited coverage of groundwater. Instead, there's a call to prioritize groundwater management directly, particularly during drought situations.

Recognizing the disparity in perspectives, the study recommends integrating economic considerations and policy implications into QWAST. By quantifying the impact of drought on sectors, the tool's value for stakeholders can be enhanced. Additionally, initiating comprehensive discussions on water allocation, covering both surface and groundwater, is suggested to reach a consensus on addressing water scarcity effectively.

In conclusion, while water distribution models like QWAST offer valuable insights, they fall short in addressing the complexities of drought management and water allocation, particularly regarding groundwater. Integrating economic perspectives and policy considerations can enhance the effectiveness of such models in guiding decision-making during periods of water scarcity. ... Read more

At the UN conference of 2015, the promotion of inland waterway transport (IWT) was named as a Sustainable Development Goal by the United Nations. While IWT has been identified to make goods transport more CO2- efficient, the long-term viability of the Dutch IWT sector is at risk.

Currently, Dutch IWT businesses benefit from increased demand for transport capacity during climate change induced periods of low river depth by being able to charge higher prices to shippers, thereby increasing short term profits. This thesis research project concludes that this behaviour is unsustainable due to the disregard for providing price competitive and reliable services to shippers, which will ultimately damage the reputation of the Dutch IWT sector. This can lead to shippers choosing other modes of transport, which will damage the long-term viability of IWT demand.

A lack of evident optimal climate adaptation measures that would better guarantee the long-term viability of an IWT business under any climate scenario is one of the reasons why IWT businesses have thus far been hesitant towards implementing climate adaptation measures. This thesis research project studies the potential of using a robust decision analysis in supporting IWT businesses’ decision-making on climate adaptation measures that could safeguard the long- term viability of the Dutch IWT sector. It conducts a robust decision analysis and then evaluates its potential using feedback from stakeholders of the Dutch IWT sector.

This thesis research project present the results from the robust decision analysis to IWT stakeholders to evaluate how these could impact their decision-making. Stakeholders noted that they believe that the produced influence diagram could be used as a standard communication object to produce a better consensus of how measures influence the long-term viability of IWT demand. Furthermore, stakeholders expressed that the robust decision analysis provided them a better understanding of which measures were able to better guarantee the long-term viability of IWT demand. Results from evaluation interviews with stakeholders therefore provide grounds to believe that robust decision analyses have potential to support IWT businesses’ decision- making on climate adaptation measures that could safeguard the long-term viability of the Dutch IWT sector. ... Read more

Climate change and anthropogenic pressures are threatening the livelihood of people in the world’s deltas. To secure a sustainable future, alternative courses of actions should be well prepared in advance, and their efficacy should be evaluated against future uncertainties. The assessment of alternative adaptation plans often takes an aggregate perspective, where the projected outcomes are aggregated across all people and over the entire planning horizon. In reality, plans which are optimal at the aggregate level, may benefit some people while harming others. This is because climate change impacts and socio-economic pressures vary in space and time, and they affect people differently depending on one’s adaptive capacity. Therefore, adaptation can exacerbate inequality. ... Read more

Floods are natural phenomena which have potentially catastrophic effects on societies and their economies. Flood losses have been increasing in the last years and they are expected to increase further in the future due to climatic and socio-economic changes. It is therefore paramount to design measures and plan strategies (i.e. combination of measures) to limit flood losses. The current practice of designing flood risk management strategies adopts a risk-based approach, which recognizes that losses from floods cannot be reduced to zero but, at best, to a tolerable level against acceptable costs. Typically, a risk-based approach to flood risk management allows choosing measures by comparing them based on investment costs and effectiveness in reducing flood risk. A measure can e.g. be evaluated based on total societal costs, i.e. the sum of investment costs and the residual flood risk, with the most desirable measure being the one which minimizes total costs. In addition to minimizing total costs, objectives related to reducing individual risk or societal risk might also be applied. Although the risk-based approach aims at wisely allocating economic resources while, at times, also guaranteeing basic individual safety as well as avoiding large societal flood losses, it often neglects that measures implemented at one location may affect flood risk elsewhere. Acknowledging this was a reason for scientists and policy makers to advocate a move towards a comprehensive system approach. Such approach supports system-wide flood risk management planning and fully accounts for hydraulic interactions, i.e. the effects on hydraulic loading at one area due to events, e.g. response of the embankment to hydraulic loading or implementation of measures, occurring elsewhere. Two challenges are identified as crucial in adopting such a comprehensive system approach while accounting for hydraulic interactions. ... Read more

Flood risk is increasing due to climate change and the growth of the potential consequences of flooding. Analysing how flood-proof the spatial plan is, therefore becomes more important. Since most spatial planners have limited knowledge concerning flood risk, the Netherlands’ Directorate-General for Public Works and Water Management commissioned the creation of an instrument that can be used by planners to gain a better insight into the flood risk. However, this instrument is used inadequately. This research focuses on the question: What are design requirements for an instrument that helps to assess flood risk during spatial planning processes? And, what does this set of requirements mean for the design and use of the current MLS Explorer?

This resulted in the findings that lead to a programme of requirements, the main findings were:
(1) The best moment to use the Explorer is early in the spatial planning process; (2) The Explorer is most interesting for local government organisations such as municipalities and water boards; (3) The information that is presented must be understandable and useful, a list of information items is distilled from flood risk analyses that were found in the different case-studies; (4) Finally, the presentation format should be adjusted into a more visionary way to make the Explorer easier for spatial planners to use. On the basis of these results and the interview findings, a programme of requirements was compiled. The instrument should:
1. Be accessible and rapid to use
2. Provide understandable output
3. Be flexible
4. Be credible
5. Be easy to use for communication purposes and official planning documents
6. Provide sufficient information for a decent flood-risk assessment

The current Explorer was assessed on these six requirements. Its overall score was insufficient, but the gap between the current version and the ideal version is not very large. The Explorer received the best score on the first and last requirements, since it is accessible (requirement 1) via the internet and it takes about 5 minutes to analyse one geographical area, and it presents sufficient information for a decent flood risk assessment (requirement 6). However, for the remaining four requirements, improvement is possible. The understandability (requirement 2) for spatial planners could be increased by using terms and figures that are commonly employed in that field. Increased flexibility (requirement 3) would serve two purposes: making the instrument more interesting for users with varying degrees of background knowledge, and making it more suitable for exploring an area by testing different scenarios. The Explorer’s credibility (requirement 4) should be improved by fixing bugs that make the instrument unreliable. The instrument’s suitability for communication (requirement 5) between parties at the beginning of the spatial planning process could also be enhanced. Such adjustments would facilitate meaningful conversations instead of first needing to wait for the release of research reports.
Based on these requirements, this thesis gives a suggestions for a new design in order to give a concrete idea for adjustments that could improve the quality of the MLS Explorer.
... Read more

Flooding due to extreme rainfall occurs more often the last years and causes high costs of property damage and economic loss due to blocked roads. Climate change is expected to increase the intensity of extreme rainfall with 12% per degree Celsius increase (KNMI, 2015). Especially cities are vulnerable to flooding due to extreme rainfall because of the high urban density and paved surfaces (van Herk et al., 2011). Hence, municipalities face the challenge of developing a climate-proof urban area. However, due to decentralization municipalities face more responsibilities without enough spending capacity. For example rainwater, the municipality has a legal duty to take care of rainwater discharge but has to cooperate with water boards, citizens and other actors. Moreover, cooperation with other actors increases because of high costs for rainwater discharge through the sewage system (RIONED Foundation, 2016). This demands municipalities to look for smarter solutions. However, municipalities are still trying to find a way of coordinating and facilitating cooperation within their network of actors which could lead to shared climate-proof developments. The question remains how municipalities could deal with this challenge and coordinate the network of actors to ensure shared execution of measures. In literature this gap is indicated as the lack of knowledge on the governance role of municipalities to develop a climate-proof urban area (Crowe et al., 2016; Francesch-Huidobro et al. 2016; Marchand & Ludwig, 2014). The research question is as follows: “To what extent is the current governance role of municipalities able to provide, direct and indirect, enough measures in both quality and quantity to ensure a climate-proof public area in dealing with extreme rainfall and how can it be improved?” By means of a literature study the role of municipalities in developing a climate-proof urban area is identified from a scientific perspective. Then, a practical perspective is presented on the position of the municipality of Delft within its network of actors, because Delft is a comparable mid-sized municipality. Furthermore, an additional in-depth case study of Delft is performed. This case study provides empirical evidence on a finished project coordinated by the municipality of Delft to develop a climate-proof public area. Subsequently the three analyses are presented in the synthesis to propose improvements for the municipality of Delft. Next, this synthesis is reviewed by experts. The results from the analyses show that the municipality of Delft is to some extend able to provide a climate-proof urban area. The analysed project was the first of its kind and thus more projects could be initiated to cover the whole municipality. The municipality ensured shared decision making and execution of measures by coordinating and facilitating the project as a meta-governor. Hence, this approach provides good potential to apply more often and ensure a climate-proof urban area. Furthermore, analysis show the municipality of Delft executes some climate-proof measures but this is not yet on a larger scale or in cooperation with other municipal departments or network actors. Lastly, maps with information on bottlenecks, opportunities or other climate related aspects are not up-to-date or lacking which could hamper effective climate-proof developments according to experts. To improve the ability of the municipality of Delft to develop a climate-proof urban area a proposal was presented. The recommendations were confirmed by experts to improve the ability of Delft. The use of area managers is valuable in Eindhoven, The Hague and Rotterdam in gathering local information to improve decision making and communicating the municipal message to the different 5 actors within an area. Also the municipality of Delft could invest more in data gathering and map making of bottlenecks and opportunities. If there is one overview from different municipal disciplines, synergies of plans can emerge, roads, sewage, park maintenance and private initiatives can be executed in one go. This lowers the costs for a plan but needs coordination and availability of data. Furthermore, the time horizon for maintenance of public space or projects could be extended to 1-10 years in order to identify opportunities and synergies earlier. Additionally, the organizational structure or way of working observed in other municipalities is a contributing aspect to be able to develop a climate proof urban area. Disciplines are incentivised to cooperate and develop integral plans because of the organizational structure and way of working. However, without a systems approach these recommendations could only have limited effect. As an example: when the maintenance of weeds in the streets is lacking behind one storm with extreme rainfall will still cause flooding. Which is an important aspect mentioned by experts that often the maintenance is often neglected. Further research should focus on more case studies and the application of meta-governance in the Netherlands. Also different kinds of projects could be valuable to analyse since the analysed project was a municipal project. The provincial or water board projects could have different outcomes. This could increase the body of knowledge and the applicability of meta-governance on different government levels. It is noted that meta-governance is a way of externally coordinate and facilitate developments. However, it is not yet studied what the internal structure has as an effect on the effectiveness of meta-governance. Also, more research should be focused on how the meta-governor can determine clear conditions and boundaries for urban development. These are needed for the new environmental act to clearly indicate how to comply private initiatives with the rules and regulations. Especially since the new act focuses more on private initiatives. Lastly, it is observed that the municipality as the meta-governor used a mixture of meta-governance techniques two, three and four. As most literature focusses on one technique it is recommended to research the effectiveness of the meta-governance techniques when these are combined including who will take this specific role or use a technique. Depending on the situation the roles can be taken up by different municipal actors and not necessarily the city-planner. ... Read more