Research line C - Exploring sustainable pathways
This research line aims to design story lines for future delta development and to identify pathways towards sustainable deltas under various scenarios of external and internal drivers. Specific story line themes that will be addressed include (combinations of): land-use change and urbanization, water use and freshwater scarcity, land subsidence, flooding, salinization, urban climate, biodiversity and ecosystem services.
A first step in this research line is the identification of ‘forces’ that potentially effect pathways in the course of time. These forces include policy objectives, the key-impacts of natural or socio-economic drivers that may affect policy decisions (coastal erosion, flooding, economic crisis), management strategies with possible measures, requirements for legitimate and effective institutional, legal, economic and governance arrangements, evaluation criteria for delta functioning and policy arrangements, and sustainability. For this identification of forces the scenarios, knowledge and models from research line A and B are used.
The hub will develop the actions, knowledge and instruments that are essential to develop management pathways, both for specific local delta environments and entire deltas. Based on theory and local context, the hub will develop evaluation criteria for delta quality, resilience and sustainability. Furthermore different generic types of solutions will be studied and evaluated, including e.g. water technology, building with nature, and its implementation through law and governance arrangements.
The establishment and evaluation of pathways is more of an intuitive, explorative and creative process with strong interactions between the different subsystems, and within-pathway feedback loops between delta state and management. Therefore, activities in this research line comprise creative sessions, including ‘expert-judgements’ as well as serious gaming labs, on the design and evaluation of pathways. Sessions will be organised on-site for stakeholders for site cases (Living labs) as well as for entire deltas.
Related storylines