Flood vulnerability research often lacks empirical validation against observed damage and rarely compares events across countries. This thesis asks to what extent theoretical flood vulnerability indicators align with actual post-disaster impact zones to define spatial typologies across recent European flood events. Four cases are compared, the 2021 Ahr Valley floods in Germany, the 2023 Emilia-Romagna floods in Italy, the 2024 Kłodzko Valley floods in Poland, and the 2024 Valencia floods in Spain, using a literature-derived indicator set operationalized on a harmonized 100 m grid. Blockwise PCA, k-means clustering, and spatial-lag ordinal regression are applied to each case and compared. An urban core typology with high built mass, dense roads, and low vegetation cover recurs in all four countries and carries the highest damage share in every case. Road density shows a significant positive association with damage in all four regional models, and built mass in three, with Germany's reversal traced to local valley terrain. Socio-demographic and governance conditions shape damage severity but vary by country. The findings support built environment intensity as a transferable basis for flood risk screening, while socio-demographic dimensions require local calibration. ... Read more

The Future Ground: Urban Planning Under Climate Uncertainty

As the focal point of the climate crisis, urban regions face a critical mismatch between the century-long lifecycles of physical infrastructure and the short-term institutional planning timeframes that govern them. This research addresses the dual constraints of temporal myopia (short-sightedness) and sectoral fragmentation, addressing the lack of mechanisms to systematically embed climate uncertainty into spatial masterplans.

Positioned within the emerging paradigm of climate urbanism, this dissertation examines how urban planning can operationalize resilience thinking and apply design thinking to steer transformation under uncertainty. The research adopts a mixed-methods design grounded in Multi-Case Theory building (MCT), enabling a rigorous exchange between theory and practice. The approach is empirically refined through two contrasting global contexts: the Metropolitan Region of Amsterdam (MRA) and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).

The research culminates in a new theories and conceptual framework that connects resilience and uncertainty approaches to physical planning interventions and an advanced understanding of the temporal dynamics of urban systems. Furthermore, it introduces a methodological innovation: a stepwise Design Thinking methodology for blending computational models and scenario narratives that embeds expert feedback into the modelling process to navigate and design for complex urban futures.
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Urban areas face increasing pressure from climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss, and rapid urbanization. In response, nature-based solutions (NbS) have gained attention for their potential to address these complex challenges while enhancing urban resilience and sustainability. However, the evaluation of NbS benefits has largely relied on the ecosystem services (ES) framework, which tends to overlook relational, cultural, and context-specific values. These gaps can limit the effectiveness and fairness of NbS, especially in diverse urban contexts. To address this gap, this thesis explores whether the nature’s contributions to people (NCP) framework can offer a more inclusive approach to evaluating the benefits of NbS in urban areas.
The main research question guiding this thesis is: “How can the Nature’s Contributions to People framework be applied to evaluate the benefits of nature-based solutions in urban environments?” To answer this, the thesis follows four steps. First, it compares existing evaluation frameworks, highlighting limitations of the ES approach and how they can undermine just NbS implementation. Second, it narrows down NCP categories most relevant to urban environments, confirming the relevance of NCP for cities. It then analyses how urban NbS contribute to those categories, which formed a basis for selecting a promising NCP category for further spatial analysis. Third, it compiles suitable indicators for each NCP category. Lastly, to validate the approach, a focused selection of NCP 16 indicators was tested through a spatial analysis using ArcGIS, applied to the case study of park Frankendael in Amsterdam.
The analysis demonstrates that the NCP framework adds value by not only capturing biophysical and economic benefits but also revealing who receives these benefits, who is excluded, and how access is distributed. These insights support more inclusive and equitable urban NbS evaluation. While this study focused on one NCP category, it provides a replicable methodology for broader applications. Future research should expand indicator testing across additional NCP categories, urban context, and NbS types to further strengthen inclusive NbS evaluations.
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Trust is key to the success of climate adaptation strategies. However, the level of trust varies between different information sources. Without trust in the source, information from a source or policy could be disregarded.

As the intensity of climate change is increasing, flood adaptation measures are not keeping up with rising flood risks. This study therefore analyses the influence of trust in information on floods and flood adaptation on different types of flood adaptation strategies. Based on a UK case study using survey data from the SCALAR-team within the European Research Council project, a descriptive analysis, a binary logistic regression and a clustering analysis have been performed to answer the research gap.

Results showed that rural areas tend to trust information sources less than urban areas, except when the information originates from family and friends. However, trust in information sources is not always associated with the intent to take flood adaptation measures. Sources such as family and friends, social media and the prime minister are associated with an increase in certain flood adaptation measures, whereas trust in a government representative is associated with a decrease in the intent to take certain flood adaptation measures. Moreover, the clustering analysis identified five distinct groups of respondents, showing the importance of area-specific policies as local trust characteristics vary.

It is advised to look into longitudinal studies using the UK survey data to further establish the relationship between trust and flood adaptation strategies. The results of this study are not generalisable, but the methods are transferable for future research. Acknowledging the power of trust is fundamental for designing successful flood adaptation policies.

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The North Sea plays a pivotal role in Europe’s energy transition, offering vast potential for offshore wind energy expansion. One promising approach to harness this potential is the hub and spoke concept, in which offshore wind farms connect to energy hubs that distribute electricity to surrounding countries and other hubs. Despite the strategic importance of this approach, there remain significant uncertainties regarding the system's design, including decisions about installed capacity, hydrogen integration methods, and future electricity demand.
This study addresses these uncertainties by first identifying the offshore wind generation goals of the countries surrounding the North Sea. Next, it evaluates various methods for integrating hydrogen production into the energy system. Based on the findings, multiple scenarios were designed to represent a spectrum of future system arrangements.
A scenario-based energy flow model was created to simulate and compare the behavior of different network designs under varying assumptions about electricity demand and hydrogen inclusion. The analysis reveals that electricity demand has a major impact on system design. Higher demand reduces the availability of surplus electricity, thereby limiting both hydrogen production and the cable capacity needed to transport electricity across the network. The results also show that onshore hydrogen production requires approximately 11% more cable capacity than offshore hydrogen production, although it avoids additional offshore infrastructure costs.

This study concludes that the North Sea hub and spoke energy system could serve as a foundational element of a flexible, robust, and integrated European energy system. However, to support effective planning and implementation, several critical areas require further research. These include the development of a time-based optimization model that incorporates real weather data and demand profiles to reveal seasonal and daily performance patterns. Moreover, there is an urgent need for more accurate projections of future electricity and hydrogen demand, as these will heavily influence infrastructure decisions. Lastly, detailed economic assessments must be conducted to better understand the investment requirements, market dynamics, and potential policy interventions needed to make this vision feasible.
By clarifying key design choices and highlighting critical next steps, this research contributes to a more informed and coordinated development of the North Sea energy system, advancing Europe’s transition toward a sustainable, carbon-neutral future. ... Read more

The recovery of transport infrastructure is crucial for earthquake-affected areas, yet these systems remain vulnerable during the intermediate recovery phase, particularly when additional hazards strike. This research investigates how the interaction between earthquakes and floods affects the resilience and recovery of transportation networks. Although awareness of multi-hazard risks is growing, little is known about how multi-hazards disrupt mid-term recovery.
Through an illustrative case study of Antakya, Türkiye, severely affected by the February 2023 earthquake and subsequent flooding, a modeling framework is developed that overlays flood simulations onto an earthquake-damaged network. This integrated approach combines flood hazard mapping with network performance analysis, capturing how inundation fragments connectivity and reduces access to essential services. Such disruptions are particularly damaging during the intermediate recovery phase, when infrastructure remains only partially functional and communities are highly sensitive to further disruption.
The analysis adopts three performance metrics to assess different dimensions of network resilience. Network centrality identifies structurally critical road segments for maintaining connectivity. Accessibility to critical services evaluates whether shelters retain access to essential facilities such as hospitals and markets. Disruption-adjusted shelter flows estimate howmany potential trips are affected by flooded roads, linking structural exposure to functional loss. These indicators are assessed across both single-hazard and multi-hazard scenarios, with flood intensities corresponding to 25-, 50-, and 100-year return periods.
Results show that flooding worsens network performance in a system already weakened by earthquake damage. Accessibility to critical amenities deteriorates, particularly in communities reliant on a limited number of corridors. These disruptions reroute shelter-related travel flows onto secondary roads, increasing travel distances and reducing accessibility, particularly in areas with low network connectivity. Spatial analysis highlights that targeted recovery of a few key corridors could improve mobility and prevent further disruptions affecting already displaced communities during multi-hazard events.
From a policy perspective, the findings emphasize the importance of adopting a multi-hazard approach in mid-term recovery planning. Strategies designed for a single hazard often lack robustness when additional threats emerge. Incorporating multi-hazard risk perspectives enables an improved understanding of vulnerabilities and supports more effective recovery planning. Doing so requires the integration of data on flood risks, transport infrastructure, and population movements into the recovery process. ... Read more

A creeping crisis adds a new phase to the hot and cold phases of a ‘regular’ crisis: the creeping phase. Detection of the tipping point at the end of this creeping phase is important for a timely response from the Dutch safety regions. Such a detection approach cannot be found in literature. This research tries to answer the question ‘What detection approach could help the Dutch safety regions in detecting the tipping point of a creeping crisis when the creeping phase becomes the hot phase?’ It is found that the creeping crisis is surrounded by uncertainty as this uncertainty can be found around the nature of the threat, the build-up of the threat and the tipping point itself. The research tries to find an approach that is able to deal with this uncertainty. It is found that an approach that makes use of thresholds might be suitable for the detection of a tipping point. However, further research is needed to make this method applicable in practice. ... Read more

This thesis investigates whether everyday access to urban services can help explain patterns of democratic engagement in European cities. It treats accessibility not only as a functional condition of daily life but also as a spatial indicator of how present public institutions are in citizens’ neighbourhoods. The study asks to what extent proximity to essential services is associated with voter turnout and electoral volatility, interpreted respectively as symptoms of democratic disengagement and democratic discontent. Empirically, it combines walking Proximity Time measures from the Sony CSL accessibility dataset with electoral results for Paris, Berlin and Rome, mapped on a fine hexagonal grid. Rental costs are used as a proxy for local income in order to check whether accessibility effects simply mirror socio economic composition. The analysis relies on descriptive statistics, cartographic exploration and correlation matrices that link accessibility to turnout and volatility across different service domains, distinguishing between services provided or strongly regulated by the state and private amenities.

The results show that accessibility is related to democratic behaviour but in a context dependent way. In Paris and Rome, longer travel times to state related services are generally associated with lower turnout and, in Rome, with strongly concentrated belts of high volatility in peripheral areas. Berlin displays an opposite configuration in which more distant zones record slightly higher participation, a pattern that reflects its polycentric structure and relatively stable residential communities. Across all three cities, rental costs explain only a small fraction of the variation in accessibility, which suggests that planning legacies and urban morphology play an independent role. Overall, the findings provide suggestive but strictly correlational evidence. They indicate that accessibility can act as a territorial channel through which institutional presence is experienced, while also highlighting the need for longitudinal and quasi experimental research designs to establish whether changes in accessibility have causal effects on democratic engagement. ... Read more

Cities are increasingly confronted with climate change impacts such as flooding and the urban heat island effect. Municipalities turn to nature-based solutions such as green roofs to improve resilience while generating environmental and social co-benefits. Yet implementation is not automatically equitable. Without explicit attention to who bears the costs and who receives the benefits, policies risk reinforcing existing socio-spatial inequalities, for instance through processes of green gentrification. Conventional cost-benefit analysis and even social cost-benefit analysis demonstrate that green roofs can provide positive returns in aggregate, but rarely reveal how outcomes differ across households, housing types, or neighbourhoods. This limits their usefulness for decisions that must balance both efficiency and fairness. The Hague provides a timely case: the city faces flood and heat challenges, has ambitious adaptation goals, and exhibits sharp variation in socio-economic status across its neighbourhoods.
The central question guiding this thesis is: How can social cost-benefit analysis and spatial equity analysis support policy making for equitable and effective implementation of green roofs in The Hague?
The research framework combines several steps. A literature review identified recognised costs and benefits of green roofs and highlighted persistent gaps in monetisation, especially for co-benefits such as biodiversity and mental health. A city-wide social cost-benefit analysis was then carried out using harmonised GIS-based data on roof suitability, climate vulnerability, and socio-economic conditions. Four expansion scenarios were analysed: environmental-priority, income-based, uniform, and optimised allocation. Results were evaluated through equity analysis, using indicators such as the Gini coefficient and Lorenz curves, followed by clustering into neighbourhood typologies. Representative neighbourhoods were decomposed into postcode-5 units for detailed analysis disaggregated by housing type (owner-occupied, private rental, social rental). Finally, robustness was tested with exploratory model analysis, including Latin Hypercube Sampling, tornado diagrams, and partial dependence diagnostics.
The current stock of green roofs in The Hague covers about 323,000 m² but delivers limited societal returns. All neighbourhoods record negative net present values, and no benefit–cost ratio exceeds one. Expansion scenarios substantially improve performance: uniform, income-based, and environmental allocations enable roughly two thirds of neighbourhoods to surpass break-even, showing that scaling up can create sufficient critical mass for societal benefits to outweigh costs. The optimised allocation, in contrast, delivers very high returns in a small number of neighbourhoods while leaving most of the city unchanged, achieving efficiency at the expense of coverage.
Distributional outcomes differ strongly by allocation rule. The income-based strategy performs best: it reduces inequality, directs benefits to lower-income and climate-vulnerable areas, and is the only scenario that achieves positive alignment between benefits and adaptation need. Uniform and environmental allocations increase coverage and improve averages, but fail to systematically prioritise vulnerable groups. The optimised allocation generates extreme inequality by concentrating benefits in affluent, low-density areas with high property values, while excluding most neighbourhoods.
Clustering reveals four neighbourhood types: High Gain–Equity, Low Uptake–Stable, High Risk–Reward, and Low Return–Saturated. Detailed analysis of representative cases shows how socio-economic context shapes outcomes. Affluent, low-density areas such as Zorgvliet incur the largest losses despite high roof potential, as costs are spread across fewer households and collective benefits remain limited. By contrast, dense, mixed-income areas such as Oostbroek-Zuid and Moerwijk-Noord perform relatively better in per-household terms, as health and energy benefits accumulate across many dwellings. Tenure also proves decisive: homeowners capture most property-related benefits, while tenants, particularly in social housing, gain relatively little, and housing corporations bear a disproportionate share of costs.
Uncertainty analysis confirms that results are sensitive to assumptions about installation costs, annual maintenance, flood damages, energy prices, and property values. While absolute figures shift under different assumptions, the relative ranking of scenarios remains broadly consistent. At the same time, outcome ranges overlap, meaning no allocation is universally superior. This highlights the importance of designing flexible policies and safeguards for vulnerable groups to ensure that equity goals are met under uncertainty.
Overall, the findings demonstrate that green roofs can contribute meaningfully to The Hague’s climate adaptation goals, but distributive outcomes vary strongly by allocation strategy, neighbourhood type, and tenure composition. Efficiency and fairness are not automatic by-products of expansion; they must be deliberately embedded in policy design. For policymakers, this means that targeting denser, lower-income areas can combine efficiency with equity, collaboration with housing corporations is essential to avoid overburdening social renters, and evaluations must acknowledge co-benefits that remain difficult to monetise. By integrating social cost-benefit analysis with spatial equity assessment, this thesis shows how economic evaluation can be extended beyond aggregate efficiency to incorporate distributive, procedural, and recognitional justice. For The Hague and similar mid-sized European cities, this provides a framework for implementing green roofs not only as effective climate measures but also as pathways towards more inclusive and just urban futures. ... Read more

The Netherlands will be facing more cases of extreme rainfall in the future. Meanwhile the Netherlands is also facing a large housing problem which requires a yearly construction of 100,000 houses per year to solve. Nature-Based Solutions can be used as one of the solutions to flooding due to extreme rainfall events in urban areas. The goal of this research is to asses the impact of the implementation of Nature-Based Solutions on stormwater flooding in new construction areas in the Netherlands under uncertainty of extreme rainfall due to climate change. This was investigated by running the flood model, the Arc-Malstrom model, for the case-study of Het Zand, Utrecht. Furthermore scenarios of 35, 70 and 140 millimeters of rain were used including the implementation of 50% and 100% green-roofs in the area. It has been found that green-roofs provide only a small improvement of 1 or 2% in flood problems overall in the area, but that the most severe floods have a reduced water height of 20cm. However the implementation of green-roofs can improve the flood problems in some areas significantly. Green-roofs will have the most improvement in flood problems in areas where 20 to 30% of the area consists of houses and thus houses are built more close to each other. ... Read more

This study explores the potential of nature-based solutions (NBS), specifically green roofs and walls, to mitigate extreme heat in arid urban environments like Riyadh. Using fieldwork, interviews, and remote sensing, a microclimate model is developed to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of these inter- ventions. Findings highlight that combined green roofs and walls provide the greatest cooling benefits, reducing temperatures by up to 1.31°C for the tested scenarios, but come with significant challenges, including high costs, structural limitations, water scarcity, and maintenance needs. Reflective coatings emerged as a cost-effective alternative, offering consistent but modest cooling. The study emphasizes the need for targeted, localized cooling efforts and raises concerns about the feasibility of widespread green infrastructure implementation in arid regions. ... Read more

The new Medical Device Regulation (MDR) addresses patient safety by mandating supporting clinical evidence for the sale and clinical use of medical devices. However, it places pressure on medical device manufacturers to supply regulators with robust clinical evidence to obtain regulatory approval of new devices they develop. Regulatory compliance is therefore more stringent, requiring more effort on part of both regulators and manufacturers. This thesis project explored the possibility of developing a new method to be used as a regulatory decision-making tool for the approval of newly developed knee implants. A Bayesian probabilistic method was developed and proposed. This method utilises existing arthroplasty registry and arthroplasty registry annual report data to determine if a newly released implant variant is “good”, where a “good” implant is one which meets standard regulatory thresholds in term of revision risk. This method was implemented on two datasets which were selected based on conditions of granularity, measures of implant performance, and accessibility for the thesis project. Some advantages and limitations of this method as a regulatory tool were proposed, the limitations being based on a clinical appraisal framework. Based on this it was concluded that the method indeed showed potential as such a regulatory tool, but needs further improvement due to considerations of reliability, precision, and the probabilistic nature of the results it yields. Both surgeons and patients can also potentially stand to benefit from this method. Aside from the regulatory context, also, the method has limitations in the fact that it does not account for other factors that may be responsible for complications related to knee arthroplasty surgery. Overall, however, this thesis presents a novel approach towards estimating the performance of knee implants from existing clinical data. ... Read more

Climate change intensifies the frequency and severity of flooding in urban areas, such as Jakarta. While government-led adaptation measures are crucial, the limitation of planned adaptations in providing complete protection emphasises household-level strategies in mitigating risks. However, limited adaptive capacity and bounded rationality can lead to maladaptive behaviours. This study investigates the dynamics of household-level climate change adaptations in Jakarta, focusing on their impact on vulnerability and potential maladaptation. Employing a mixed-methods approach, the research analyses micro-level survey data and agent-based modelling to examine adaptation measures like elevation, dry-proofing, and wet-proofing. Findings reveal that socioeconomic factors, such as income and fatalistic attitudes, influence adaptation choices. Low-income households are particularly vulnerable to suboptimal strategies, like wet-proofing, which can exacerbate their risk. The study also highlights a discrepancy between these measures' perceived and actual efficacy, emphasising the need for targeted policies. Recommendations include promoting effective adaptation, providing targeted financial aid, and enhancing community and governmental support. By addressing these factors, policymakers can reduce the likelihood of maladaptation in urban Jakarta. ... Read more

To advance the energy transition and prepare for the accompanying increase in electricity demand, the electrical grid of the Netherlands requires rigorous investments for expansion and maintenance. In order to solve and further prevent grid congestion, a lot of projects have to be executed and this demands collaboration of grid operators and local governments. In addition to the technical problems of the transition, there is also a growing part of the population that is suffering from energy poverty and energy injustice which prevents them from benefiting from new innovations, while wealthier households are financially profiting from these. The negative socioeconomic effects are not accounted for in the investment plans of grid operators, even though not addressing these problems will further increase inequality in the population.
In order to research how investments in the electricity grid are related to the socioeconomic status of neighbourhoods and how this affects equality in the province of South-Holland, this thesis is conducted. The study aims to answer the research question: "To what extent can spatial relations between electricity grid infrastructure and socioeconomic characteristics be identified and quantified in the province of South-Holland and what does this relation imply for inequality?"

To answer this question, first a literature study was conducted in order to identify socioeconomic variables related to energy poverty and energy justice to use in the research. Subsequently, data for these selected variables is collected on a neighbourhood level and the electricity infrastructure in the province of South-Holland is mapped. The research focuses on the low and middle voltage grid infrastructure as these grid levels directly influence households and their impact can be assessed on a neighbourhood level.
The collected data was then used in a correlation analysis to discover a possible relationship between the socioeconomic status of a neighbourhood and the amount of low and middle voltage stations located in it. As the electricity demand of wealthier households is higher than the demand of lower income households, it was expected that there would be a positive correlation between prosperity and electricity infrastructure. The found correlations, however, did not result in any definitive conclusions, except for the relation between the amount of inhabitants and the amount of electricity infrastructure, so another analysis was performed that focused more on the spatial correlations. In this hotspot analysis the variables with a strong relation from the correlation analysis were used in a clustering research. This resulted in indications being found that linked areas of socioeconomic prosperity to more investments in electricity infrastructure, as was assumed. This implicates that there is an unbalanced distribution of costs and benefits on the grid as everyone pays the same for the investments, but wealthier neighbourhoods profit more.

In order to learn how this relation came to be and how it affects equality, experts on the topic were interviewed. In total five interviews were conducted with people from main stakeholders in the system, namely: grid operators, municipalities and researchers on energy justice. The interviewees were asked about their thoughts on the results of the analyses, the developments of the electricity grid, its effect on equality and the role of the province of South-Holland in the system. From these interviews it was concluded that the indicated unbalanced distribution of electricity grid investments among different socioeconomic groups in the population is not necessarily a problem for equality on the short term, although it might provide difficulties in the future. The investments follow demand and thus it is a logical consequence that neighbourhoods with a higher electricity usage require more electricity infrastructure.
The problem in the system is that there are socioeconomic groups who have no access to the energy transition and can therefore not benefit from the developments, while others are enriched by it. This unequal balance of costs and benefits causes inequality to grow in the future, so governments will have to ensure lower income households have access to energy transition innovations in order to secure a balanced and sustainable future. ... Read more

This thesis investigates the role of critical infrastructure (CI) in disaster management, focusing on Hatay in the 2023 Turkey - Syria Earthquake. Given the extensive destruction that impacted critical infrastructure systems, this study aims to investigate both the underlying factors that contributed to infrastructure failures and the effectiveness of the long-term recovery plans for the city. Through a case study approach, this thesis provides insights that not only aid in understanding the earthquake’s impact on Hatay's infrastructure but also offers broader implications for improving resilience in other disaster-prone regions.

The earthquake devastated critical infrastructure in Hatay, delaying rescue and emergency response efforts and exacerbating loss of life and property damage. This research seeks to uncover the root causes that contributed to these failures and evaluate post-disaster recovery plans. The study’s primary question centers on the planning and management shortcomings within critical infrastructure systems and explores how these might be rectified in future disaster responses. The objectives include identifying the key critical infrastructures, analyzing root causes of the key critical infrastructure's system failures, and evaluating the long-term recovery plans’ effectiveness in mitigating risks.

A mixed-methods approach was selected for this case study to provide a comprehensive understanding of the key factors at play. The study includes qualitative analysis based on semi-structured interviews enabling the identification of key critical infrastructures based on stakeholder experiences and perspectives. To investigate the root causes of system failures, Fault Tree Analysis (FTA) is employed, offering a systematic and logical approach to identify underlying issues and contributing factors. Additionally, the study evaluates the effectiveness of long-term recovery plans through a comparative analysis of retrospective and prospective risk assessments.

In the analysis of the interviews education sector, healthcare services and transportation systems emerged as the key critical infrastructure, with their failure significantly impeding immediate response efforts and their importance in recovery. The education sector, in particular, emerged as a crucial component for long-term recovery and the restoration of societal normalcy. Meanwhile, the healthcare system struggled to manage overwhelming patient surges, while transportation bottlenecks, worsened by damage to road networks and airports, severely delayed the delivery of essential services and resources.

The FTA revealed several critical failures in CI planning and management. Healthcare services experienced capacity overload and staff shortage resulting from resource allocation and distribution failures, lack of seismic retrofitting and neglected structural faults in hospital buildings and restricted access to hospitals originated from transportation system failure. Transportation systems suffered from non-functional airport and road network failure originating from poor site location, previous inaccurate site assessments, inadequate design for site conditions, lack of maintenance and lack of redundancy, leaving many areas inaccessible post-disaster. A recurring theme across CIs was a lack of region-specific resilience planning to account for Hatay’s unique geographic context.

While the recovery plans address several CI weaknesses identified in the root cause analysis, significant gaps remain, especially in aligning strategies with the identified pre-disaster vulnerabilities. Although the recovery efforts incorporate bed capacity improvements and increased redundancy, heightened risk concerning neglected structural faults inaccurate site assessment were observed.

The increased risk suggests that the recovery plans may be addressing symptoms rather than the root causes of vulnerabilities. This points to a need for recovery strategies that go beyond immediate repairs, focusing instead on addressing foundational risks to ensure lasting resilience and reduce the likelihood of repeated failures.

This case study highlights the devastating effects of infrastructure failures during disasters. By addressing the root causes of these failures and implementing more comprehensive, resilient recovery plans, Turkey can build a disaster management framework that is robust enough to withstand future natural disasters. Although disaster management is highly context-dependent and cannot be universally applied, this study is important at a broader level, highlighting the need to identify the root causes of system failures in order to effectively mitigate future disaster risks. ... Read more

The Sahel region has become a focal point of concern due to the alarming escalation of terrorism, culminating in devastating attacks that have claimed numerous lives and disrupted regional stability. Mali, in particular, has experienced a significant surge in terrorist activity. This thesis presents a novel approach of using criticality measures based on network science as pay-offs for a game theoretical model in order to protect connectivity of road networks in conflict areas. Through two comprehensive literature reviews the network scan approach, based on shortest paths, population sizes, travel distances, and travel times and the two-player zero-sum game structure were selected as the basis for the methodology. In order to enhance understanding of dynamics on the road network, semi-structured expert interviews were conducted. The model is applied to the region of Segou in Mali and optimal strategies were compared to empirical terrorist attack data of the ACLED database. It is concluded that road network protection can be strengthened to minimize the impact of terrorist attacks through the allocation of protective resources. Firstly, experts highlight the positive impact of combining military patrols and convoys with explosive ordnance disposal on road safety. Secondly, results revealed the network scan approach's potential as a valuable tool for criticality assessment. Thirdly, contexts lacking empirical traffic data, directing network protection efforts towards roads identified as optimal strategies by the model becomes prudent. Lastly, the comparison of optimal strategies against emperical data provides the means enhance insurgent behaviour's understanding. While the developed model can be considered rudimentary, it is believed to have laid down essential foundational principles. Further research is recommended the extend the model further, including validate the model's effectiveness and determine its applicability to different types of attacks and different insurgency groups. This thesis hopes to have made a contribution to the academic fields encompassing counter-terrorism, network science, and game theory within conflict settings. ... Read more

Nature-based solutions (NbS) are increasingly being used around the globe as a climate action tool. In the Global South, which faces significant climate risks, higher urbanisation rates emphasise the importance of climate justice. While social valuations and interactions with nature-based solutions have been well researched, the relationships between nature-based solutions and social vulnerability to climate change remain difficult to capture. Furthermore, there exist little support for decision-makers to integrate social vulnerability into NbS planning. In this thesis, a social vulnerability framework to determine ecosystem service demand is presented using principal component analysis (PCA), and used with an NbS matching model to determine the types and locations of NbS to be prioritised, applied to a case study of Cape Town, South Africa. The presented framework allows for leveraging openly available quantitative data sets and incorporating different risk factors, while depending on expert interviews to contextualise the model and emphasize its limitations. Three potential policy considerations are recommended for the city of Cape Town to facilitate climate just NbS implementation: cooperation with conservation, potential for climate adaptation and justice, and the importance of community involvement. Using this method of prioritisation and selection, decision-makers of the city of Cape Town can incorporate climate justice into its urban planning for NbS, while taking consideration of the framework limitations and restrictions. ... Read more

Due to climate change, there is a push toward a reduction of greenhouse gasses. Through spatial planning, the province of South Holland plays a role in this process. However, this requires insights into relation between the energy system and the built environment that is currently lacking. This thesis shows how spatial clustering using the K-prototype algorithm can be used to find areas with similar characteristics. It also describes how this information can be used in spatial planning by decisionmakers like the province of South Holland. ... Read more

Densification, the increase of built environment elements in urban areas, has been identified as a tool to mitigate social and environmental consequences of urban sprawl, i.e. the continuous extension of urban boundaries and dispersed construction of built-up areas.
At the same time, unique environmental and social challenges are requiring urban developers to adapt their approaches to changed long-term or short-term physical conditions while considering the social consequences.
Many cities around the globe, and amongst them Amsterdam, The Netherlands, are striving to align urban interventions in the field of densification and climate action. This led to the research question: Which social impacts arise from simultaneous urban densification and climate action in the form of climate change adaptation and the energy transition?
This study provides insight into the current knowledge in scientific literature and the perceptions of urban policymakers. A qualitative mixed methods approach was applied. The approach was constituted of a systematic literature review and semi-structured interviews. A social impact framework was combined with an understanding of the natural sciences, engineering and urban planning to assess the social impacts of urban densification in times of climate action.

I first collected the current literature at the interface of urban densification, the energy transition and climate change adaptation to compile the perspective of academic literature in a knowledge base.
Secondly, I conducted semi-structured interviews with urban policymakers of the Dutch capital of Amsterdam to gain insight into the perspective of policymakers. In the analysis of both my data sets, I discerned explicitly mentioned social impacts as well as social impacts which were not explicitly stated, but could be reasoned from the collected literature and the conducted interviews.
Finally, the comparison of both perspectives shows a strong prevalence of social impacts in the spheres of livability in the built environment, health and economic relations. How densification, the energy transition and climate change adaptation exert consequences on communities and institutional relations is much less observed at the current state. Lastly, impacts on cultural or gender relations are close to absent from the discussion - in academic literature and the perceptions of urban policy-makers in the case study alike.
While the results are largely connected to the conceptualisation and methods applied, implications can be drawn for future research and policy-making. It is essential to explore the origins of the low occurrence of cultural and gender impacts in the data set to evaluate whether these are due to knowledge constraints or actual low impact rates. But, given the understandings gained, I urge to observe these spheres more strongly, in particular in relation to indirect social impacts. Moreover, the case study shows that social impacts of densification and climate action transitions are highly context-driven. They are subject to questions of ownership, human behaviour, urban inequalities and social differentiation within the constraints of physical space and monetary as well as environmental budgets. Additionally, it is indispensable to further strengthen the interaction and communication between researchers, policy-makers and other stakeholders. ... Read more