Climate adaptation on the crossroads of multiple boundaries. Managing boundaries in a complex programme context

Programme management is increasingly used in The Netherlands to realize more integrated regional development, where different sectoral policy objectives are combined. To understand how integration of different objectives is realized in programme management approaches, it is important to have in depth knowledge on how actors manage social, cognitive and physical boundaries. Therefore, this article analyses how actors manage boundaries in a regional integrative programme. Within this case we focus on two integration attempts: one which has succeeded relatively well and one which was less successful. The analysis shows the importance of boundary spanning actions, such as jointly working on strategy documents, organizing events where actors can formally and informally interact, and the activities of a political change agent. Adding to previous insights, we find four additional explanations for successful integration which shed new light on how boundaries can be best managed in future programmatic approaches: the influence of contextual factors on boundary management and its success, the need to address both the social and cognitive dimension of boundaries, the need to make the programme attractive for the actors governing the issues it wants to integrate with, and the role of boundary drawing to create an understanding and respect for boundaries

Integrating functions for a sustainable urban system

Cities pose environmental challenges but also offer possibilities to close material and energy loops and connect multiple societal and ecologic services. This article reviews and brings together the literature on two important new research directions that address urban sustainability by integrating functions or material flows: Circular Urban Metabolism (CUM) and Multifunctional Land Use (MLU). We focus on challenges to MLU and CUM and strategies to facilitate their realization. The review shows that although MLU and CUM differ in what they integrate, they face partly similar integration challenges. In both fields, the collaboration between actors related to particular functions (water safety, recreation), high investment costs and uncertainties about costs and benefits, and legislation that hampers integration are identified as challenges. In both fields, strategies are proposed to facilitate the collaboration between actors. However, other challenges and strategies are specific. W

Boundaries in Action: Managing boundaries in integrative land use initiatives

This thesis is about multi-level and multi-actor governance in integrated land use initiatives. I study the challenges and strategies for integrative work from the perspective of working across boundaries. I focus on how actors manage boundaries, i.e. how they span boundaries, but also how they challenge, change, defend and construct boundaries in integrative processes