Tools for climate change adaptation in water management - inventory and assessment of methods and tools

This report summarizes an inventory of methods and tools for assessing climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation options, focusing on the water sector. Two questions are central: What are the opportunities for international applications of Dutch methods and tools? And: Which methods and tools available abroad are suitable for application in The Netherlands

Simlandscape, a design and research support system for local planning, based on the scenario method and Parcel-Based GIS

Many authors mention gaps between planning and reality (Salet, 2000; Wheeler, 2002), modelling and reality (Parker, 2003), and between modelling and planning (Clark, 2003). The first gap refers to inadequate planning models and instruments and the second one to the yet inadequate simulation models. The last before mentioned gap refers to cultural and ontological differences between these fields. There seems to be a kind of hate-love relationship: there is a promise of synergy, but also a considerable communication problem. Inside planning there is an ongoing debate on what qualities are important, how to deal with stakeholders and how to implement plans. This debate stretches from the functionalistic modernism to identity oriented comprehensive new regionalism. Planning concepts are in essence instruments for governance and therefore developed for and focused on control and intervention of specific aspects of spatial development. The root of planning is about the creation of the future and not about future research. This focus is one of the reasons why so many regional plans fail to be implemented. Modelling is focused on system behaviour; it is focused on scientific future research. Through its scientific approach and still inapt models, modelling however generates results that many planners do not recognize as practical from their daily perspective. They mistrust the models and find their grid based maps primal. Planning and modelling are complementary and therefore in principle synergetic. Modelling could provide planning, its context and moneylender, with a powerful evaluation tool. For this to happen however planning has to be more open to landscape as an autonomous system and must develop consistent (scenario) approaches. Now, planning models are mostly not adequate for interactive scenario development and simulation. And modelling has, next to improving performace, to pay more attention to practical planning issues (spatial quality and practise data) and language (catographic products and scales). This way they could make a beautiful couple, provided they work on themselves. What is required is a kind of intermediate or integrative scenario and typology approach. Simlandscape is a methodological toolbox for land use planning. It includes research and development, evaluation and monitoring of panoramic land use scenarios. It has been specifically developed to do the before mentioned job. Simlandscape was the object of a recently finished R&D project. It is designed to accommodate future research and interactive scenario development (explorative interactive planning) on a local and regional scale. The toolbox is based on an ontological transformation model of how landscape changes. Key elements are that Simlandscape is parcel based and actor and object orientated. The innovative aspects of Simlandscape have to do with the effect of the key elements of the model – an integration of land property and –exploitation in a landscape layer model in combination with a cadastral data model - for the comprehensiveness of the tool with respect to research activities, plan phases, qualities and stakeholders.

Simlandscape: serious gaming in participatory spatial

In an attempt to improve support for contemporary spatial planning practice, Simlandscape has been developed. In this document the development of Simlandscape as ¿serious game¿ in digital form is described. In its current state, Simlandscape exists in two methodological forms; as an analogue game and as a planning support system using GIS for research and design. The game focuses on simulation of plan processes and on the resulting transformation of areas involved. Players interact with an analogue area model. The planning support system focuses on design and evaluation of plan scenarios and the data handling and presentation accompanying this process. A major challenge now is to integrate, upgrade and digitize components of the analogous game with the planning support system. Several interesting components (practical and scientific) of this project are identified and are discussed

Catalogue and Toolbox of Risk Assessment and Management Tools

The ENHANCE project is concerned with analysing and working towards improved public-private partnerships for managing risks from natural hazards. An important issue for such partnerships is the methods, tools and processes available for assessing risk and risk management options. Risk analysis has long provided useful input to decision-making. At the same time, the field of risk analysis is in motion and an enhanced framing of risk analysis and risk management is being embraced following an iterative cycle organized around notions of learning, innovation and transformation. This broadened vision on risk analysis is a key issue for the ENHANCE project as well, which takes many and different perspectives on analysing, understanding, communicating and managing risk. This report lays out the status quo at the outset of the project regarding risk analytical tools, methods and data that are currently used by project partners in ENHANCE. The task overall develops a catalogue of existing risk assessment and management tools and methods to describe the concepts of iterative risk management and further sets up a toolbox, containing individual models and tools to be used by the case studies in their analyses. While work in the cases study, including methodological development, is in process, we find that ENHANCE partners and cases employ a multitude of models, tools and data ranging from impact analysis, different risk modelling techniques to various decision-support methods. A number of tools that encapsulate these methods are also available with the consortium. We suggest the tools and methods in use can be useful starting points for working towards a broader vision of iterative risk management. While the work so far, and this deliverable, have focussed on populating the technical stages of the risk analytical cycle (visually identified as the inner circle), we suggest in the next phase of ENHANCE, additional efforts should be dispensed to better understand adaptive management aspects associated with using these methods and tools, such as learning, innovation and transformation, which we exhibit visually in an outer circle. This report proceeds as follows: We start with laying out key elements of risk analysis and management in section 2, which also describes the new framing organized around the iterative risk-management concept. Methods for assessing risk and evaluating risk management are discussed in section 3. Then we consider methods, models and datasets that are in use in the ENHANCE case studies at the moment (section 4), before section 5 concludes. Finally and importantly, the annex lists more information on cases studies, for which detailed information was received from the project partners

Adaptation of WASH Services Delivery to Climate Change and Other Sources of Risk and Uncertainty

This report urges WASH sector practitioners to take more seriously the threat of climate change and the consequences it could have on their work. By considering climate change within a risk and uncertainty framework, the field can use the multitude of approaches laid out here to adequately protect itself against a range of direct and indirect impacts. Eleven methods and tools for this specific type of risk management are described, including practical advice on how to implement them successfully

Adapting to change: Time for climate resilience and a new adaptation strategy. EPC Issue Paper 5 March 2020

The dramatic effects of climate change are being felt across the European continent and the world. Considering how sluggish and unsuccessful the world has been in reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the impacts will become long-lasting scars. Even implementing radical climate mitigation now would be insufficient in addressing the economic, societal and environmental implications of climate change, which are expected to only intensify in the years to come. This means climate mitigation must go hand in hand with the adaptation efforts recognised in the Paris Agreement. And although the damages of climate change are usually localised and adaptation measures often depend on local specificities, given the interconnections between ecosystems, people and economies in a globalised world there are strong reasons for European Union (EU) member states to join forces, pool risk and cooperate across borders. Sharing information, good practices, experiences and resources to strengthen resilience and enhance adaptive capacity makes sense economically, environmentally and socially. The European Commission’s 2013 Adaptation Strategy is the first attempt to set EU-wide adaptation and climate resilience and could be considered novel in that it tried to mainstream adaptation goals into relevant legislation, instruments and funds. It was not very proactive, however. It also lacked long-term perspective, failed to put the adaptation file high on the political agenda, was under resourced, and suffered from knowledge gaps and silo thinking. The Commission’s European Green Deal proposal, which has been presented as a major step forward to the goal of Europe becoming the world’s first climate-neutral continent, suggests that the Commission will adopt a new EU strategy on adaptation to climate within the first two years of its mandate (2020-2021). In light of the risks climate change poses to ecosystems, societies and the economy (through inter alia the vulnerability of the supply chain to climate change and its potential failure to provide services to consumers), adaptation should take a prominent role alongside mitigation in the EU’s political climate agenda. Respecting the division of treaty competences, there are important areas where EU-wide action and support could foster the continent’s resilience to climate change. The European Policy Centre (EPC) project “Building a climate-resilient Europe”, which has culminated in this Issue Paper, has identified the following: (i) the ability to convert science-based knowledge into preventive action and responsible behaviour, thus filling the information gap; (ii) the need to close the protection gap through better risk management and risk sharing; (iii) the necessity to adopt nature-based infrastructural solutions widely and tackle the grey infrastructure bias; and (iv) the need to address the funding and investment gap. This Issue Paper aims to help inform the upcoming EU Adaptation Strategy and, by extension, strengthen the EU’s resilience to climate change. To that end, the authors make a call for the EU to mainstream adaptation and shift its focus from reacting to disasters to a more proactive approach that prioritises prevention, risk reduction and resilience building. In doing so, the EU must ensure fairness and distributive justice while striving for climate change mitigation and protecting the environment and biodiversity. To succeed, the new EU Adaptation Strategy will need to address specific challenges related to the information, protection, funding and investment gaps; and the grey infrastructure bias. To tackle and address those challenges, this Paper proposes 17 solutions outlined in Table 1 (see page 6)

STOP-IT: strategic, tactical, operational protection of water infrastructure against cyberphysical threats

Water supply and sanitation infrastructures are essential for our welfare, but vulnerable to several attack types facilitated by the ever-changing landscapes of the digital world. A cyber-attack on critical infrastructures could for example evolve along these threat vectors: chemical/biological contamination, physical or communications disruption between the network and the supervisory SCADA. Although conceptual and technological solutions to security and resilience are available, further work is required to bring them together in a risk management framework, strengthen the capacities of water utilities to systematically protect their systems, determine gaps in security technologies and improve risk management approaches. In particular, robust adaptable/flexible solutions for prevention, detection and mitigation of consequences in case of failure due to physical and cyber threats, their combination and cascading effects (from attacks to other critical infrastructure, i.e. energy) are still missing. There is (i) an urgent need to efficiently tackle cyber-physical security threats, (ii) an existing risk management gap in utilities’ practices and (iii) an un-tapped technology market potential for strategic, tactical and operational protection solutions for water infrastructure: how the H2020 STOP-IT project aims to bridge these gaps is presented in this paper.Postprint (published version

Evaluation of crime prevention initiatives

This third toolbox in the series published by the EUCPN Secretariat focuses on the main theme of the Irish Presidency, which is the evaluation of crime prevention initiatives. The theme is explored and elaborated in various ways through: a literature review; two workshops with international experts and practitioners during which the strengths and weaknesses of programme evaluation were discussed in detail; a screening of existing guidelines and manuals on evaluation; and finally, a call which was launched by the EUCPN Secretariat to the Member States to collect some practices on the evaluation of crime prevention initiatives

Adaptive traffic signal control using approximate dynamic programming

This paper presents a study on an adaptive traffic signal controller for real-time operation. The controller aims for three operational objectives: dynamic allocation of green time, automatic adjustment to control parameters, and fast revision of signal plans. The control algorithm is built on approximate dynamic programming (ADP). This approach substantially reduces computational burden by using an approximation to the value function of the dynamic programming and reinforcement learning to update the approximation. We investigate temporal-difference learning and perturbation learning as specific learning techniques for the ADP approach. We find in computer simulation that the ADP controllers achieve substantial reduction in vehicle delays in comparison with optimised fixed-time plans. Our results show that substantial benefits can be gained by increasing the frequency at which the signal plans are revised, which can be achieved conveniently using the ADP approach