Urban planning, water management and climate change strategies: adaptation, mitigation and resilience narratives in the Netherlands

Abstract

There are few countries in the world where the importance of addressing climate change in urban policy is as acutely felt as in the Netherlands. As a low-lying country located on a large river delta, it is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Its vulnerable position is one of the reasons why the country (and several of its cities) is a leading player in climate change-related initiatives. Although some of the policy responses to climate change are based on water management tasks that predate all climate change debates, a range of new responses involving both adaptation and mitigation have been developed at the national and local levels in the Netherlands. Recent shifts in policy have been accompanied by the emergence of a new underlying concept – the concept of resilience. This paper has two main areas of investigation. First, it examines the shifts in emphasis on climate change adaptation and mitigation in urban planning, water management and climate change strategies. Second, it studies the origins and nature of the concept of urban resilience and the way in which the notion has permeated national and local policy in the Netherlands. The city of Rotterdam is used to illustrate the situation at the local level. The paper reveals shifting emphases on adaptation and mitigation over time and across different policy documents as well as a range of interpretations of the concept of resilience.

Keywords:

• climate change
• urban planning
• the Netherlands
• Rotterdam
• adaptation
• mitigation
• urban resilience

Acknowledgements

Much of this paper is based on analysis carried out for a collaborative research project entitled ‘Sustainable Land Use Policies for Resilient Cities (SUPER-CITIES)’ supported by the URBAN-NET funding scheme under the EU’s Sixth Framework European Research Area Network (ERA-NET) initiative. Other outputs from this project can be found in a recently published book edited by Eraydin and Taşan-Kok (2013). The author is grateful to the other members of the project team (Middle Eastern Technical University, Turkey; Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands; Nordregio – the Nordic Centre for Spatial Development, Sweden; University of Porto, Portugal; and the Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal), especially Tuna Taşan-Kok and Peiwen Lu from Delft, for comments and discussions that have helped to shape the manuscript. The author would also like to thank the two anonymous referees for their constructive reviews of an earlier version of the manuscript.

Notes

1. 1. Cities (or urban regions) might also be added to Hudson’s list of objects to which the concept of resilience can be applied or studied.

2. 2. The Amsterdam Ordnance Datum (Normaal Amsterdams Peil, or simply NAP, in Dutch) is used to measure water levels in large parts of Western Europe. The zero level of NAP was originally based on the average summer flood water level on the River IJ in Amsterdam.

3. 3. The new National Spatial Planning Act came into effect on 1 July 2008, replacing the previous act from 1965.

4. 4. A similar approach had been proposed in the Fifth Note on Spatial Planning (published in 2001) but this never entered into force as a result of national political changes (see Priemus 2004).

5. 5. Climate-proof development was the first of five priorities set out in the national vision for water management:

1. Working together to climate-proof the Netherlands

2. Using water to build a stronger economy

3. Living sustainably with water

4. Using water expertise to provide assistance worldwide

5. Rediscovering how to live with water

6. 6. The four guiding ‘principles’ of plans presented in the Randstad 2040 structural vision are as follows:

1. Living in a safe, climate-resilient and green-blue delta;

2. Creating quality through greater interaction between green (landscape), blue (water) and red (urbanisation);

3. Strengthening what is already strong internationally; and

4. Powerful, sustainable cities and regional accessibility.

7. 7. The two main dimensions of urban resilience discussed above are (i) the system’s robustness (or its strength to withstand disturbance); and (ii) the speed with which this recovery of function is achieved (or flexibility of response).

8. 8. The term assets is used by Nicholls et al. (2007) to refer to buildings, transport infrastructure, utility infrastructure and other long-lived development.