Standards Promoting Climate Adaptation in Dutch Urban Environments

Abstract

To encourage climateadaptive building in the Netherlands the
Covenant ClimateAdaptive Building (CKAB) was developed by a consortium of
stakeholders (Convenant klimaatadaptief bouwen in ZuidHolland, 2018). This
nonbinding agreement proposed standards for six (climate) aspects in order to adapt
the Netherlands to a changing climate. These standards were first applied in
pilots in Haarlemmermeer, Utrecht, Rotterdam (Vlot et al., 2021) and in
Dordrecht, where the new residential area of Amstelwijck was planned.
Implementing climateadaptive measures ánd standards is yet an innovative process
and iterative learning is required to improve this process. We want to know
what role standards played in selecting climateadaptive measures in Dordrecht
and what result they achieved. This study focused on three climate aspects
specifically: heat stress, pluvial flooding and droughts. The case study in
Dordrecht was evaluated by means of a stateoftheart hydrological model,
UrbanWB. Urban plans of Amstelwijck provided the basis to research
applicability of this model as a design and assessment tool (i). The goal of
this method was to improve the integral understanding of the complexity and interrelations
of a (hydrological) system for designers and policymakers, which would allow them
to make better choices. Additionally, this same model was used to assess
uncertainty in design, engineering and climate (ii). A quantification was made
for the relative relevance of design choices, such as decreasing paved
surfaces, local conditions, such as soil type or drainage velocities, and
climate change, with increased evaporation, precipitation and extremes.
Additionally, CKAB standards and the process of applying them in Amstelwijck
was researched (iii). Two groups of stakeholders, goal oriented (Municipality
of Dordrecht, WSHD & hired staff) and user oriented (project developers &
hired staff), were identified and these groups were interviewed with the goal
of learning what kind of standards encourage climate adaptation and finding
where barriers or enablers exist. This was done with the help of the concept of
user centred design (Long et al., 2016), inspiring the stakeholder groups and a
division into standards focused on goals or means, and the concepts of
principle/rulebased approach (Nakpodia et al., 2016) and creative
freedom/specification (Frei and Di Marzo Serugendo, 2011). With this research
it could be concluded that UrbanWB can help designers by providing arguments for
design choices, which was mentioned as an enabler in interviews. The model
touched on interconnectivity between different climate aspects and five model
indicators were identified to compare the performance of different plans. For
assessment purposes no major improvements were made yet compared to models
commonly employed, except that this method offers potential for a tool, which is
easytoadopt. By verification with other models this should become more clear. The
model architecture was found to be less suitable for assessing urban plans on
heat stress and to a lesser extent drought, but proved valuable for pluvial
flooding. On uncertainty three important notions were made: climate change is a
significant uncertainty; local conditions are decisive for the ’robustness’,
ability to perform under different conditions, of an urban system; design
choices can have large effects on the hydrology of the system, some are
effective enough to deal with climate change. The type of soil was found to be
a decisive factor for every climate aspect. It is reaffirmed in interviews and
focus groups that local conditions could be listed as a possible theme in the
process of climate adaptation. In working with CKAB standards for the first two
parts of this research ideas about the way of description, direction and
commitment of standards were already formed, but the interview analysis
affirmed and strengthened this view. Ideal standards should be specific,
focused on goals and rulebased, but principles are leading and exceptions
should be allowed to ensure creative freedom, which is important in an innovative
process. Designers, policy makers and engineers could apply the methodology
used in this study to promote climate adaptation and deal with the uncertainty
brought by climate change. The results of this research emphasized the
importance of integral thinking in design and lawmaking, since this provides
more insight and argumentation for selecting climateadaptive measures A
perception that standards should be focused on goals instead of means is
crucial to directing urban developments.