Stakeholder involvement

Citizen participation and knowledge co-production are essential for the development and implementation of effective spatial adaptation measures. However, until now, many local authorities struggle with organizing meaningful stakeholder participation.   

Protocol for joint scenario development

Identifying stakeholders’ visions

Climate services provide information about the future climate in deltas and are essential tools in delta planning, but in order to be useful they are dependent upon the input of local stakeholders. As part of the CoCliServ project (Co-development of place-based Climate Services for action), Arjan Wardekker, Hens Runhaar, Joost Vervoort, Dries Hegger and Heleen Mees, developed and tested a scenario protocol to involve stakeholders in the process of creating climate services. It specifies steps to identify stakeholders’ visions about the future and use them to reflect on their current and future knowledge needs and develop practical tools, as required to reach the desirable future.

We were able to design services that fit the locally-specific needs in different cities

The protocol was tested in five cities across North-West Europe. Arjan Wardekker, senior researcher on urban resilience and climate change adaptation, explains, "In the project we were able to use our approach to design services and tools that fit the often very locally-specific needs and settings in different cities and regions". As a result of the workshop in Dordrecht (The Netherlands), an initial design for a local warning app for heavy rain showers has been developed.

Photo of workshop result of visioning exercise on desirable neighbourhood in Dordrecht
Workshop result of visioning exercise on desirable neighbourhood in Dordrecht, the Netherlands. Source: Wardekker et al. (2019), reprinted with permission

Toolkit for citizen participation

Supporting policymakers

Although many local authorities see the benefits of stakeholder involvement, they often struggle with organizing meaningful participatory exercises. Led by PhD researcher Mandy van den Ende, a group of Utrecht University researchers developed a Toolkit that provides policy makers with tools and tips on how to organize citizen participation and design workshops, to jointly develop visions of a climate-resilient future.

Applying incremental backcasting was a big success since it provided concrete and useful information for policy makers

Next to visioning and backcasting exercises, the toolkit contains a new tool called ‘incremental backcasting’. This tool was developed to work out different pathways, that lead to a vision, accounting for sudden disturbances or new opportunities. The toolkit, including the new tool, was tested in Dordrecht. “Applying incremental backcasting was a big success since it provided more concrete and useful information for policy makers than more general visioning exercises”, explains Mandy van den Ende.

Conceptualisation of incremental backcasting pathways as a successfully tested tool during workshops on spatial adaptation in Dordrecht
Incremental backcasting pathways as a successfully tested tool during workshops on spatial adaptation in Dordrecht, the Netherlands. Source: Van den Ende et al. (2021), reprinted with permission