Water as a connector

Abstract

Cities in the Netherlands have mostly traditionally developed themselves around water: often near rivers or sea, sometimes also at its intersection. Rotterdam, with one of the largest port city in the Netherlands, is an example. Rotterdam is a dynamic world port and has a century-long tradition of living with water. The tradition of protecting “against and living with water” contributed to the development of the city. The strategic location of Rotterdam in the Dutch delta brought us prosperity and growth. The city grew with their port activities. After the 20th century, the movement of the port towards the sea where the Maastvlakte aroused has left former post-industrial areas abandoned. This change in space and function has accelerated into new opportunities for Rotterdam as a city port. Rotterdam can continuously adapt to new conditions responding to economic and social changes. Thanks to its position in the delta, Rotterdam has a strong international orientation and has a large number of potential financial clusters. Because of this economy, the population number has grown in Rotterdam. Rotterdam as a delta can also face the threat of river floods and storm surges from the seas and heavy rainfall. The City cope with a lot of heavy rain that can affect our health and environment. Due to a changing climate and changing insights concerning sustainable relations between cities and water-landscapes, new interventions will be needed to create a new urban delta-landscape. In addition to safety and better water-systems, in urban delta’s there is a need for stronger spatial identities and new cohesion of cities and their water-landscapes (delta intervention objectives). There is a requirement for Rotterdam to transform into a climate adaptive city to protect itself from floods and water damages. It is a favorite situation to live in or along water environment. Therefore, development of the water-related climate offers excellent opportunities in Rotterdam. This challenge Rotterdam in a correct way of land use planning where public and private stakeholders are involved. New interventions that are needed to create a new urban deltalandscape are mostly planned as an individual tool that lacks in coherency of urban planning strategies in general. Van Veelen (2016) mentioned that there is a lack of research that focuses on actual processes of urban development, management, and change as an essential precondition for a successful implementation of climate adaptation strategies. There can be an integrated approach of climate adaptation in waterfront development and urban renewal. Incorporating adaptation into regular urban development processes can be explained as part of a political process to redistribute responsibilities to lower levels of authority (e.g., city level) and enlarge the role of the private sector (van Veelen, 2016). This part of the research indicate the problems of climate change, waterfront redevelopment and declining neighborhood resulting in a problem statement and a hypothesis for an enhanced integrated approach in the development of common interest between private and public stakeholders.