Heleen Mees

Adaptation to climate change-related risks in Dutch urban areas: stimuli and barriers

Climate change is associated with various risks, such as flooding and heat stress. So far, most research has concentrated on the identification and quantification of these risks as well as the development of adaptation measures. Yet much less is known about how planners actually perceive and deal with climate change, and why. This paper focuses on the governance of two climate change-related risks in urban areas in the Netherlands, namely heat stress and flooding from rainfall and rivers. Heat stress hardly seems to be perceived as an urgent problem, mainly because there is no clear ‘problem owner’. Because municipalities are responsible for rain and sewage water management and partly for river flooding, increased flood risk is more often recognised as a (potential) problem. Despite the rather low sense of urgency regarding these two climate change-induced risks, urban planners are, or envisage, investing in more open water and public green areas. Heat stress and flood risks from rainfall are not the reasons per se, but primarily act as additional arguments to legitimise these measures, which should contribute to sustainable urban development in general. Our analysis suggests a gap between the perceived urgency of proactive adaptation to climate change by scientists and the perceptions of planners. Climate science research could enhance its contribution to urban planning by providing conceivable projections of climate change impacts as well as by developing adaptation measures that serve multiple purposes and strategies to successfully implement these.

Exploring the scope of public and private responsibilities for climate adaptation

Although in practice the division of responsibilities in adaptation to climate change is often not explicitly decided upon, governments appear to be primary actors in adaptation planning. However, literature suggests that the governance of adaptation requires roles for both public and private actors so that responsibilities can be shared and all of societys resources can be fully exploited. Active involvement of all societal actors might overcome problems of inefficiency and raise the legitimacy of adaptation action. This article presents a framework that enables the characterization and explanation of existing governance arrangements in terms of responsibility divisions among public and/or private actors, and that facilitates the search for alternative responsibility divisions and their associated advantages and disadvantages. The framework is illustrated with an example of a governance arrangement for green roofs as an adaptation measure for storm water retention in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The merit of the framework is that it promotes the conscious deliberation of considerations in the public–private divide, taking into account some specific challenges to the governance of climate adaptation. It may, therefore, support well-informed decisions on responsibility divisions in climate adaptation by local governments.

A method for the deliberate and deliberative selection of policy instrument mixes for climate change adaptation

Policy instruments can help put climate adaptation plans into action. Here, we propose a method for the systematic assessment and selection of policy instruments for stimulating adaptation action. The multi-disciplinary set of six assessment criteria is derived from economics, policy, and legal studies. These criteria are specified for the purpose of climate adaptation by taking into account four challenges to the governance of climate adaptation: uncertainty, spatial diversity, controversy, and social complexity. The six criteria and four challenges are integrated into a step-wise method that enables the selection of instruments starting from a generic assessment and ending with a specific assessment of policy instrument mixes for the stimulation of a specific adaptation measure. We then apply the method to three examples of adaptation measures. The methods merits lie in enabling deliberate choices through a holistic and comprehensive set of adaptation specific criteria, as well as deliberative choices by offering a stepwise method that structures an informed dialog on instrument selection. Although the method was created and applied by scientific experts, policy-makers can also use the method.

Who governs climate adaptation? Getting green roofs for stormwater retention off the ground

Green roofs are an innovative solution for urban stormwater management. This paper examines governance arrangements for green roofs as a ‘no-regrets’ climate adaptation measure in five cities. We analysed who governs green roofs, why and with what outcome. Our results show that hierarchical and market arrangements co-exist in the various stages of the policy process. Cities with a higher prevalence of hierarchical arrangements have substantially higher implementation rates for green roofs. Although private sector involvement is crucial for raising efficiencies, a significant level of public responsibility taken by local governments appears to be salient for unleashing the potential of green roofs.

Local governments in the driving seat? A comparative analysis of public and private responsibilities for adaptation to climate change in European and North-American cities

ABSTRACT The division of responsibilities between public and private actors has become a key governance issue for adaptation to climate change in urban areas. This paper offers a systematic, comparative analysis of three empirical studies which analysed how and why responsibilities were divided between public and private actors for the governance of local urban climate adaptation. For 20 governance arrangements in European and North-American cities, the divisions of responsibilities and the underlying rationales of actors for those divisions were analysed and compared. Data were gathered through content analysis of over 100 policy documents, 97 in-depth interviews and 2 multi-stakeholder workshops. The comparative analysis reveals that local public authorities are the key actors, as they bear the majority of responsibilities for climate proofing their cities. In this stage of policy emergence, local authorities are clearly in the driving seat. It is envisaged that local public authorities need to more actively engage the different private actors such as citizens, civil society and businesses through governance networks along with the maturation of the policy field and the expected acceleration of climate impacts in the coming decades.

Solidarity in water management

Adaptation to climate change can be an inclusive and collective, rather than an individual effort. The choice for collective arrangements is tied to a call for solidarity. We distinguish between one-sided (assisting community members in need) and two-sided solidarity (furthering a common interest) and between voluntary and compulsory solidarity. We assess the strength of solidarity as a basis for adaptation measures in six Dutch water management case studies. Traditionally, Dutch water management is characterized by compulsory two-sided solidarity at the water board level. Since the French times, the state is involved through compulsory national solidarity contributions to avoid societal disruption by major floods. In so far as this furthers a common interest, the contributions qualify as two-sided solidarity, but if it is considered assistance to flood-prone areas, they also qualify as one-sided solidarity. Although the Delta Programme explicitly continues on this path, our case studies show that solidarity continues to play an important role in Dutch water management in the process of adapting to a changing climate, but that an undifferentiated call for solidarity will likely result in debates over who should pay what and why. Such discussions can lead to cancellation or postponement of adaptation measures, which are not considered to be in the common interest or result in an increased reliance on local solidarity.

Prepared for climate change? A method for the ex-ante assessment of formal responsibilities for climate adaptation in specific sectors

Climate change-related risks encompass an intensification of extreme weather events, such as fluvial and pluvial flooding, droughts, storms, and heat stress. A transparent and comprehensive division of responsibilities is a necessary—but not the only—precondition for being prepared for climate change. In this paper, we present, and preliminarily test, a method for the ex-ante assessment of the division of public and private responsibilities for climate adaptation in terms of comprehensiveness, transparency, legitimacy, and effectiveness. This method proofs particularly suited for the assessment of adaptation responsibilities in combination with a sectoral approach. It helps identifying a number of shortcomings in divisions of responsibilities for climate adaptation. We conclude that this method is useful as a diagnostic tool for identifying the expected climate change preparedness level, and recommend to combine this with ex-post analyses of real-life cases of extreme events in order to assess the actual preparedness for climate change. Besides the scientific purpose of providing a generally applicable assessment method, with this method, we also intend to assist policy-makers in developing and implementing adaptation plans at various levels.

A framework for assessing the accountability of local governance arrangements for adaptation to climate change

Accountability has hardly been studied in the governance of climate change adaptation. This paper develops a framework for assessing the accountability of interactive governance arrangements for local adaptation. This framework is based on five important accountability mechanisms: Clear responsibilities and mandates, Transparency, Political oversight, Citizen control and Checks and sanctions. For illustration purposes, the proposed framework is applied to the case of a Dutch local adaptation governance arrangement. The application shows that the five proposed mechanisms and their operationalizations offer a valid assessment of the accountability of such arrangements. It also raises some challenges, such as the tensions between accountability and flexibility, legitimacy and effectiveness; the potentially important roles of trust and of the political skills of central actor(s) in the arrangement in raising accountability, and the potential need to distinguish between arrangements for policy planning and for service delivery.

The effectiveness of communicative tools in addressing barriers to municipal climate change adaptation: lessons from the Netherlands

ABSTRACT Little research has been done on the effectiveness of communicative tools for climate change adaptation. Filling this knowledge gap is relevant, as many national governments rely on communicative tools to raise the awareness and understanding of climate impacts, and to stimulate adaptation action by local governments. To address this knowledge gap, this study focuses on the effectiveness of communicative tools in addressing key municipal barriers to climate change adaptation, by conducting a large N-size empirical study in the Netherlands. This study explores the effectiveness of these tools in theory, by checking whether their goals match the perceived barriers to municipal climate change adaptation, and the effectiveness in practice by analysing whether they are used and perceived as useful. Document analyses have clarified the assumptions underlying the tools. By conducting semi-structured interviews with 84 municipalities the key barriers to climate change adaptation and the use and usefulness of the tools in practice were analysed. The research revealed that the key barriers experienced by municipalities are a lack of urgency, a lack of knowledge of risks and measures, and limited capacity, the first being the primary one. Communicative tools, while being effective in theory, are not sufficiently effective in practice in addressing the key barriers. Municipalities that are not experiencing a sense of urgency to take on adaptation planning are not likely to be activated by the tools. Advanced municipalities need more sophisticated tools. This article concludes with some suggestions to improve the effectiveness of communicative tools. Key policy insights Although effective in theory in addressing key barriers to municipal adaptation planning, the effectiveness in practice of communicative tools is limited. To increase their effectiveness in practice, municipalities’ awareness of the existence of the communicative tools needs to be raised. Advanced municipalities need more sophisticated tools that are context-specific and address a wide range of climate risks. The effectiveness of communicative tools can be improved by embedding them in a wider mix of policy instruments.