Bridging the financial gap in climate adaptation: Dutch planning and land development through a new institutional lens

Abstract

Based on a case study of the Stadshaven port redevelopment in Rotterdam, this paper explores whether existing spatial planning mechanisms and processes can be used to facilitate local-level investment in climate-resilient public infrastructure and/or whether new processes and mechanisms are required to encourage investment in climate adaptation. The study reveals several key findings. First, a lack of conventional funding sources or formalised regulatory framework allowed room for experimentation with existing mechanisms and flexible strategies. Second, project planners are currently ambivalent towards introducing new mechanisms as a means to overcome implementation challenges. The case provides evidence about the role of the governance process, not simply as a means of system coordination that exists in isolation from institutional norms and values, but rather as a space for innovation, which can contribute towards reducing the financial gap associated with climate adaptation.

Keywords:

• climate adaptation
• area redevelopment
• financial barrier
• institutional change
• spatial investment

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by funding from the Dutch research programme, Knowledge for Climate/Climate Proof Cities. The findings were presented at the European Climate Change Adaptation Conference in Hamburg, Germany in March 2013. The authors would like to thank the referees for their helpful comments.

Notes

1. Resilience in this context refers to an engineering conceptualisation wherein adaptation measures are designed to return the impacted area to a steady state after the disturbance (Funfgeld and McEvoy 2012).

2. Innovation refers to the application of existing mechanisms to create novel solutions to meet new requirements.

3. Buitelaar, Lagendijk, and Jacobs (2007) referred to the Smith et al. (2001, 42) definition of ‘institutional bricolage’: as “the patching together of institutional arrangements from the cultural resources available to people in response to changing conditions. A key feature of institutional bricolage is the coming together of different (mainstream and alternative) logics and perspectives” (895).

4. Four schools of thought, representing variants of new institutionalism, are referred to as historical institutionalism, rational choice institutionalism, sociological institutionalism, and discursive institutionalism (Thynne 2008). Thynne identified the logics associated with each institutionalism as ‘path-dependence’, ‘interest’ ‘appropriateness’ and ‘communication’, accordingly (329).

5. A NAP [Normaal Amsterdams Peil] of ‘0’ is the average sea level of the North Sea, which is a topographical reference point used in the Netherlands.