Helena F.M.W. van Rijswick

The regional governance of climate adaptation: A framework for developing legitimate, effective, and resilient governance arrangements

Adaptation to climate change raises important governance issues. Notwithstanding the increasing attention on climate adaptation at the global and European level, the variety of local conditions and climate impacts points towards a prime role for regional actors in climate change adaptation. They face the challenge of developing and implementing adaptation options and increasing the adaptive capacity of regions so that expected or unexpected impacts of future climate change can be addressed. This paper presents a conceptual framework to analyse the regional governance of climate adaptation. It addresses the following key questions: (1) What are the distinct challenges for the regional governance of climate adaptation? (2) Which concepts can guide the design of new governance arrangements and strategies? (3) What challenges to legal principles are posed by the climate? (4) What research methods are suitable for developing and testing governance arrangements and strategies? We present a framework designed to address each of these questions; it has analytical, design, normative, and methodological components. In the paper, examples from the Dutch regional governance of climate adaptation serve as illustrations of the conceptual argumentation.

Assessing Stability and Dynamics in Flood Risk Governance

European urban agglomerations face increasing flood risks due to urbanization and the effects of climate change. These risks are addressed at European, national and regional policy levels. A diversification and alignment of Flood Risk Management Strategies (FRMSs) can make vulnerable urban agglomerations more resilient to flooding, but this may require new Flood Risk Governance Arrangements (FRGAs) or changes in existing ones. While much technical knowledge on Flood Risk Management is available, scientific insights into the actual and/or necessary FRGAs so far are rather limited and fragmented. This article addresses this knowledge gap by presenting a research approach for assessing FRGAs. This approach allows for the integration of insights from policy scientists and legal scholars into one coherent framework that can be used to identify Flood Risk Management Strategies and analyse Flood Risk Governance Arrangements. In addition, approaches for explaining and evaluating (shifts in) FRGAs are introduced. The research approach is illustrated by referring to the rise of the Dutch risk-based approach called ‘multi-layered safety’ and more specifically its application in the city of Dordrecht. The article is concluded with an overview of potential next steps, including comparative analyses of FRGAs in different regions. Insights in these FRGAS are crucial to enable the identification of action perspectives for flood risk governance for actors at the level of the EU, its member states, regional authorities, and public-private partnerships.

EU Water Governance: Striking the Right Balance between Regulatory Flexibility and Enforcement?

Considering the challenges and threats currently facing water management and the exacerbation of uncertainty by climate change, the need for flexible yet robust and legitimate environmental regulation is evident. The European Union took a novel approach toward sustainable water resource management with the passage of the EU Water Framework Directive in 2000. The Directive promotes sustainable water use through long-term protection of available water resources, progressively reduces discharges of hazardous substances in ground and surface waters, and mitigates the effects of floods and droughts. The lofty goal of achieving good status of all waters requires strong adaptive capacity, given the large amounts of uncertainty in water management. Striking the right balance between flexibility in local implementation and robust and enforceable standards is essential to promoting adaptive capacity in water governance, yet achieving these goals simultaneously poses unique difficulty. Applied resilience science reveals a conceptual framework for analyzing the adaptive capacity of governance structures that includes multiple overlapping levels of control or coordination, information flow horizontally and vertically, meaningful public participation, local capacity building, authority to respond to changed circumstances, and robust monitoring, system feedback, and enforcement. Analyzing the Directive through the lens of resilience science, we highlight key elements of modern European water management and their contribution to the resilience of the system and conclude that the potential lack of enforcement and adequate feedback of monitoring results does not promote managing for resilience. However, the scale-appropriate governance aspects of the EU approach promotes adaptive capacity by enabling vertical and horizontal information flow, building local capacity, and delegating control at multiple relevant scales.

Normative aspects of climate adaptation policies

Adaptation to climate change is a complex process of societal change and should be studied as such. Attention to issues of climate adaptation has increased considerably over the past few years. Until now, less attention has been paid to questions concerning normative issues of societal change. In this paper we will address three important questions on the normative level: (a) What kind of legal and policy principles should public and private actors take to heart when formulating and implementing adaptation measures? (b) Which societal interests should be protected by a climate-adaptation policy and in what order? (c) To what extent are governments responsible for adaptation to climate change and what are the responsibilities to be borne by private parties and citizens? We will treat these questions from a mix of legal, administrative, and economic perspectives. We conclude with some recommendations on how to deal with these normative aspects in policy-making processes.

Toward more flood resilience: Is a diversification of flood risk management strategies the way forward?

European countries face increasing flood risks due to urbanization, increase of exposure and damage potential, and the effects of climate change. In literature and in practice, it is argued that a diversification of strategies for flood risk management (FRM) - including flood risk prevention (through pro-active spatial planning), flood defense, flood risk mitigation, flood preparation and flood recovery - makes countries more flood resilient. While this thesis is plausible, it should still be empirically scrutinized. This paper aims to do this. Drawing on existing literature we operationalize the notion of flood resilience into three capacities: capacity to resist; capacity to absorb and recover; and capacity to transform and adapt. Based on findings from the EU FP7 project STAR-FLOOD, we explore the degree of diversification of FRM strategies and related flood risk governance arrangements at the national level in Belgium, England, France, The Netherlands, Poland and Sweden, as well as these countries achievement in terms of the three capacities. We found that The Netherlands and to a lesser extent Belgium have a strong capacity to resist, France a strong capacity to absorb and recover and especially England a high capacity to transform and adapt. Having a diverse portfolio of FRM strategies in place may be conducive to high achievements related to the capacities to absorb/recover and to transform and adapt. Hence, we conclude that diversification of FRM strategies contributes to resilience. However, the diversification thesis should be nuanced in the sense that there are different ways to be resilient. First, the three capacities imply different rationales and normative starting points for flood risk governance, the choice between which is inherently political. Second, we found trade-offs between the three capacities, e.g. being resistant seems to lower the possibility to be absorbent. Third, to explain countries achievements in terms of resilience, the strategies feasibility in specific physical circumstances and their fit in existing institutional contexts (appropriateness) as well as the establishment of links between strategies, through bridging mechanisms, have also been shown to be crucial factors. The paper provides much needed reflection on the implications of this diagnosis for governments, private parties and citizens who want to increase flood resilience.

Out of the Comfort Zone : Institutional Context and the Scope for Legitimate Climate Adaptation Policy

Abstract Adaptation to climate change is gradually becoming accepted as one of the major challenges in regional and urban planning. However, the scope for options that make our societies less vulnerable to flood risks, disruptive quantities of rainwater in cities, or urban heat stress tends to be narrowed down, often implicitly, by the existing institutional context. Institutions reflect past choices made regarding the legitimate distribution of burdens and benefits between government and society of measures against weather-related calamities. Alternative options, like innovative dyke concepts, green roofs, or urban planning to reduce heat stress, would require political debate on the legitimacy of different arrangements and would take climate adaptation policy out of the technocratic ‘comfort zone’. This article offers a framework of analysis for describing the institutionalized distribution of responsibilities for initiation, implementation, costs and liability for climate adaptation measures, and the shift in these that alternative options would entail. Furthermore, it offers four perspectives for assessing the legitimacy of present and alternative distributions. The framework is applied to the Dutch context in three cases concerning flooding, urban water drainage and urban heat stress.

The European union approach to flood risk management and improving societal resilience : Lessons from the implementation of the Floods Directive in six European countries

Diversity in flood risk management approaches is often considered to be a strength. However, in some national settings, and especially for transboundary rivers, variability and incompatibility of a ...

Toward more resilient flood risk governance

Countries all over the world face increasing flood risks because of urbanization and the effects of climate change. In Europe, flooding is the most common of all natural disasters and accounts for the largest number of casualties and highest amount of economic damage. The current scientific debate on how urban agglomerations can be made more resilient to these flood risks includes a discussion on how a diversification, coordination, and alignment of flood risk management strategies (FRMSs), including flood risk prevention through proactive spatial planning, flood defense, flood risk mitigation, flood preparation, and flood recovery, can contribute to flood resilience. Although effective implementation of FRMSs can be considered a necessary precondition for resilience, efficient and legitimate flood risk governance can enhance this societal resilience to flooding. Governance and legal research has the potential to provide crucial insights into the debate on how to improve resilience. Yet the social sciences have only looked into this issue in a fragmented manner, often without a comparative scope. This special feature addresses this knowledge gap by focusing on the scope and workings of FRMSs, but also on cross-cutting topics such as uncertainties, distributional effects, solidarity, knowledge management, and citizen participation. The papers included in this feature are written by both policy analysts and legal scholars. The above-mentioned issues are thus approached via a multidisciplinary perspective. All papers convincingly show that one-size-fits-all solutions for appropriate and resilient flood risk governance arrangements do not exist. Governance arrangements should be tailored to the existing physical, socio-cultural, and institutional context. This requires an open and transparent debate between scientists and practitioners on the normative starting point of flood risk governance, a clear division of responsibilities, the establishment of connectivity between actors, levels, and sectors through bridging mechanisms, and adequate knowledge infrastructures, both nationally and internationally

Governance of the Sponge City Programme in China with Wuhan as a case study

Abstract In 2015, China’s national government initiated a Sponge City Programme to address its urban flood issues. A sponge city is a city built around the concept of managing water in an ecologically sustainable way. The intention is to improve urban resilience through rainwater capture, storage and use. This article applies a four-mode governance framework to analyze the programme. It identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the programme implementation and provides recommendations.

Distributional effects of flood risk management—a cross-country comparison of preflood compensation

We seek to examine the manner in which either the EU member states of France, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden or parts of them, such as the country of England in the UK or the Flemish Region in ...