Local narratives of change as an entry point for building urban climate resilience

Cities face increasing risks due to climate change, and many cities are actively working towards increasing their climate resilience. Climate change-induced risks and interventions to reduce these risks do not only impact urban risk management systems and infrastructures, but also people's daily lives. In order to build public support for climate adaptation and resilience-building and stimulate collaboration between authorities and citizens, it is necessary that adaptation and resilience-building are locally meaningful. Thus, interventions should be rooted in citizens’ concerns and aspirations for their city. Urban policymakers and researchers have started the search for better citizen participation in adaptation. However, tools to connect the relatively strategic and long-term notions of adaptation to a gradually changing climate held by planners and scientists with how citizens experience today's climate and weather remain elusive. This paper investigates the use of ‘narratives of change’ as an approach to elicit perceptions of past, present and future weather, water, and climate, and how these relate to citizens’ desired futures. We tested this by eliciting and comparing narratives of change from authorities and from citizens in the Dutch city of Dordrecht. Our analysis of the process showed that historical events, embedded in local memory and identity, have a surprisingly strong impact on how climate change is perceived and acted upon today. This contributes to an awareness and sense of urgency of some climate risks (e.g. flood risks). However, it also shifts attention away from other risks (e.g. intensified heat stress). The analysis highlighted commonalities, like shared concerns about climate change and desires to collaborate, but also differences in how climate change, impacts, and action are conceptualized. There are possibilities for collaboration and mutual learning, as well as areas of potential disagreement and conflict. We conclude that narratives are a useful tool to better connect the governance of climate adaptation with peoples’ daily experience of climate risks and climate resilience, thereby potentially increasing public support for and participation in resilience-building.</p

Everybody should contribute, but not too much: Perceptions of local governments on citizen responsibilisation in climate change adaptation in the Netherlands

Arguments for so-called citizen responsibilisation, the transfer of responsibilities for public services to citizens, are increasingly put forward in several Western-European countries. An important domain in which citizen responsibilisation is advocated is that of urban climate change adaptation. However, in practice, the advocated shift is taking place only to a limited extent. This study aims to help explain this by researching Dutch local governments' perceptions on citizens' capabilities as well as these governments' preferences regarding the tasks they want to delegate to citizens in the different stages of adaptation planning. Findings from three workshops with policy practitioners from local governments show that these practitioners have moderate trust in citizens' capabilities, but a low willingness to transfer responsibilities. Concerns of local governments include how to: (i) ensure an equal division of resources between different citizen groups/neighbourhoods; (ii) address citizens who are pursuing their own benefits more than producing a public adaptation good; (iii) address potential externalities for other citizens; (iv) guarantee a certain quality level for the public space. The study shows that local governments have an implicit awareness of different dimensions of responsibility and the tensions between them, including at least: responsibility as a task, as a legal duty, and as something for which one can be held accountable. We recommend a more explicit discussion of these dimensions in practice and a more systematic treatment of them in conceptual and in empirical studies

Wicked problems and creeping crises: A framework for analyzing governance challenges to addressing environmental land-use problems

Human societies face significant difficulties in the governance of environmental land-use problems. The challenges involved must be thoroughly understood to develop effective and legitimate governance of these often inherently wicked problems. However, in environmental governance literature, governance challenges have been described rather generally, and the characteristic features of different types of problems have not been specified. Drawing on this literature, this paper presents an analytical framework for governance challenges typical of a “wicked problem” and a “creeping crisis”. We empirically illustrate the combined framework by applying it to the environmental land-use problem of land subsidence in the Dutch peatlands. Land subsidence exemplifies a wicked problem because it is neither definable nor solvable. Due to the lack of effective governance, the problem has allowed threats with crisis potential to develop. However, land subsidence represents a “creeping” crisis because, despite the increasing risk of damage, there is little sense of urgency. The case study illustrates that governance challenges posed by such problems often originate from a lack of comprehensive sense-making of these problems’ complexity and that responses, therefore, tend to be counterproductive. Hence, the paper empirically substantiates the need for governance approaches that help achieve the systemic change that is arguably needed to address environmental land-use problems adequately

Governance strategies for improving flood resilience in the face of climate change

Flooding is the most common of all natural disasters and accounts for large numbers of casualties and a high amount of economic damage worldwide. To be ‘flood resilient’, countries should have sufficient capacity to resist, the capacity to absorb and recover, and the capacity to transform and adapt. Based on international comparative research, we conclude that six key governance strategies will enhance ‘flood resilience’ and will secure the necessary capacities. These strategies pertain to: (i) the diversification of flood risk management approaches; (ii) the alignment of flood risk management approaches to overcome fragmentation; (iii) the involvement, cooperation, and alignment of both public and private actors in flood risk management; (iv) the presence of adequate formal rules that balance legal certainty and flexibility; (v) the assurance of sufficient financial and other types of resources; (vi) the adoption of normative principles that adequately deal with distributional effects. These governance strategies appear to be relevant across different physical and institutional contexts. The findings may also hold valuable lessons for the governance of climate adaptation more generally

Improving flood resilience through governance strategies: Gauging the state of the art

There has been an upsurge in studies of flood risk governance (FRG): steering and decision-making by public and private actors as a complement to risk assessments and technical management options. The scholarly debate is, however, highly fragmented, complicating the production of cumulative insights. To address this knowledge gap, we used six governance strategies for achieving flood resilience that previously have been put forward as a conceptual framework to review 121 articles published between 2016 and 2019, complemented with insights contained in recent overview articles, to gauge the state-of-the-art in FRG literature: to (a) diversify flood risk management strategies; (b) align the strategies; (c) adequately involve private actors, including citizens; (d) put an adequate rule system in place; (e) cater for sufficient monetary and non-monetary resources; (f) inspire an open and inclusive normative debate. We found, first, that literature is producing insights on increasingly technically advanced risk assessments and agent-based models but societal debate on justice in flood risk governance is getting attention. A clearly emerging topic is that of citizen engagement in flood risk governance. Second, the geographical focus of the studies is still skewed toward the Global North. To make progress in understanding flood risk governance for better resilience more systematic and comparative empirical assessments of flood risk governance in order to derive generalizable lessons while better taking into account the context-specificity of FRG. Testing flood risk governance solutions against comparative cases, by balancing the geographical scope of research efforts, and enhancing interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary working is a way to deliver knowledge for more resilience. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water Governance Engineering Water > Planning Water

Improving flood resilience through governance strategies: Gauging the state of the art

There has been an upsurge in studies of flood risk governance (FRG): steering and decision-making by public and private actors as a complement to risk assessments and technical management options. The scholarly debate is, however, highly fragmented, complicating the production of cumulative insights. To address this knowledge gap, we used six governance strategies for achieving flood resilience that previously have been put forward as a conceptual framework to review 121 articles published between 2016 and 2019, complemented with insights contained in recent overview articles, to gauge the state-of-the-art in FRG literature: to (a) diversify flood risk management strategies; (b) align the strategies; (c) adequately involve private actors, including citizens; (d) put an adequate rule system in place; (e) cater for sufficient monetary and non-monetary resources; (f) inspire an open and inclusive normative debate. We found, first, that literature is producing insights on increasingly technically advanced risk assessments and agent-based models but societal debate on justice in flood risk governance is getting attention. A clearly emerging topic is that of citizen engagement in flood risk governance. Second, the geographical focus of the studies is still skewed toward the Global North. To make progress in understanding flood risk governance for better resilience more systematic and comparative empirical assessments of flood risk governance in order to derive generalizable lessons while better taking into account the context-specificity of FRG. Testing flood risk governance solutions against comparative cases, by balancing the geographical scope of research efforts, and enhancing interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary working is a way to deliver knowledge for more resilience. This article is categorized under: Human Water > Water Governance Engineering Water > Planning Water

Comparig six Dutch climate change adaptation projects ; Towards successful joint knowledge production for climate change adaptation: lessons from six Dutch regional project

In the domain of climate change adaptation we see various efforts at joint knowledge production (JNP) through intensive cooperation between scientists, policymakers and other actors. Regional climate change adaptation projects in The Netherlands form prominent examples of this. In literature and in practice, claims have been made that joint knowledge production provides a useful way to reconcile supply and demand for knowledge. However, there is a lack of systematic empirical studies on how to successfully ‘do’ this. Existing research is restricted to conceptual analyses and fragmented empirical studies. This paper, on the contrary, aims to generate design principles. It does so by confronting a previously-developed assessment framework with empirical reality in six Dutch adaptation projects. Project documents were studied and 30 semi-structured interviews with researchers, policymakers and project financiers in the projects were held. Based on the comparison, the paper derives and elaborates upon two design principles for JNP. First, we have seen that the most successful projects managed to create some distance (a protected niche) for knowledge development, while at the same time establishing connections with ongoing policy processes. Successful JNP seems to be more likely in cases in which actors make a conscious decision for the institutional location of the project on the research-policy nexus, whereby the coordinating entity has some characteristics of a boundary organization. Second, specific resources, including facilities, boundary objects and specific competences increase the chance for success. In conclusion, the paper reflects on the external validity of the analysis and identifies next steps towards developing an empirical knowledge base for JNP.September 201