Sebastiaan van Herk

IHE Delft Institute for Water Education | UNESCO-IHE · Department of Water Science and Engineering

Multi-functional nature-based solutions (NBS) can help urban areas become more climate proof, adaptable, and provide a range of societal goals. Alongside chronic impacts from climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic has illustrated the disruption that unexpected and acute shocks can bring to society. Measures like NBS can help reduce the vulnerability...

The world is changing. Transformations to mobility patterns, pressing air quality issues, and growing flood risks present new challenges for European cities. Now, however, thanks to data and digitisation, cities can tackle these challenges together. Rather than reinventing the wheel or going down the traditional software vendor route with all its a...

Over the past years a considerable number of municipalities joined together in networks that address climate change mitigation and more and more also adaptation. The presented research focuses on one key aspect of those networks: The sharing of knowledge and experience among the member cities, referred to as city-to-city learning. Due to climate ch...

This article presents the concept and science behind a "healthy city" and introduces a proven approach to deliver them through the Healthy Cities Generator.

Despite being carbon storage powerhouses, biodiversity champions, and important for climate change adaptation and mitigation, peatlands are in trouble. Across Europe they have been drained and degraded. As we enter the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, it is crucial that we ensure peatlands are protected, restored, and sustainably managed now and...

This brief provides support and guidance in developing an appropriate and tailored business case, or justification for using Blue and Green Infrastructure (BGI) in projects. BGI can, in conjunction with social innovation, deliver and enhance urban areas and living. This brief complements, and should be read alongside, other outputs from the BEGIN p...

Cities are increasingly joining forces through transnational municipal networks. The presented research focuses on one of the key services of these organisations: providing a platform for city-to-city learning. Interviews with representatives of networks and cities showed that through network organisations local policymakers aim to connect with pee...

City-to city (C2C) learning (learning from peers and their best practices) is of crucial importance regarding topics (i.e. urban resilience) in which cities do not have time to re-invent the wheel. This abstract outlines why it is important, how C2C learning can be done most effectively and the mayor challenges regarding C2C learning. When confron...

Increasingly regarded as climate governors cities are joining together in transnational municipal networks (TMN) that address climate change mitigation and since recently also adaptation and resilience. The presented research provides a global picture of one under-researched key aspect of those networks: city-to-city learning (C2CL) and the exchang...

Nature-based solutions (NBS) have been recently defined as “actions inspired by, supported by or copied from nature” – intended mainly as its features, capital and complex system processes – to address several “environmental, social and economic challenges in sustainable ways”. Their design and implementation require a multidisciplinary and multi-s...

The Room for the River program is considered an "exemplary project" for adopting new governance approaches by the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Environment. The Room for the River Program has greatly influenced the Dutch flood risk management strategy in the past decade. In this paper we explore the contribution of Room for the River to the...

This paper focuses on the vulnerability and protection of critical urban infrastructure from flooding. It presents a pragmatic and rapid screening procedure, referred to as a ‘Quick Scan methodology’. The purpose of the Quick Scan is to provide guidance for network operators and decision makers on identifying and rating those critical infrastructur...

The effects of climate change are expected to increase the frequency and magnitude of floods, droughts and heat waves. An emerging method termed adaptation tipping point – opportunity (ATP-O) assesses a system’s climate-incurred tipping points and uses opportunities arising from urban developments to introduce adaptation strategies while reducing i...

This paper explores how the Room for the River Program contributes to the introduction of adaptive delta management (ADM) as applied by the Delta Program in The Netherlands. The concept of Room for the River is based on a holistic, integrated approach embracing a multi-functional river in which flood safety is realized in combination with other val...

Adaptive co-management and learning are paramount for integrated flood risk management. Relevant literature focuses on adaptation at the level of physical and societal systems. The level of projects and programmes is largely overlooked, but they comprise interventions that adapt our physical systems and they provide opportunities for learning to co...

This paper explores how programme management (as opposed to project management) can contribute to the effective design and delivery of megaprojects. Traditionally, project management is considered to be performance focused and task oriented, whilst programme management entails a more strategic focus. The programme management literature suggests tha...

New flood risk management policies account for climate and socio-economic change by embracing a more integrated approach. Their implementation processes require: collaboration between a group of stakeholders; combining objectives and funding from various policy domains; consideration of a range of possible options at all spatial scale levels and fo...

The frequency and consequences of extreme flood events have increased rapidly worldwide in recent decades and climate change and economic growth are likely to exacerbate this trend. Flood protection measures alone cannot accommodate the future frequencies and impacts of flooding. Integrated flood risk management (IFRM) considers a portfolio of meas...

Dit artikel presenteert Learning & Action Alliance (LAA) als een manier van vernieuwend samenwerken in een publiek-private kennisalliantie waarbij beleidsverandering beoogd wordt en innovatieve pilots worden ingezet. In Dordrecht wordt al ruim 10 jaar gewerkt aan integraal waterbeheer met een LAA. De ervaringen en uitkomsten van de LAA Dordrecht wo...

This paper focuses on the vulnerability and protection of critical urban infrastructure from flooding. It presents a pragmatic and rapid screening procedure, referred to as a “Quick Scan methodology”. The purpose of the Quick Scan is to provide guidance for network operators and decision makers on identifying and rating those critical infrastructur...

There is a growing international recognition that flood risk management in optima forma should be a programmed and flexible process of continuously improving management practices by active learning about the outcome of earlier and ongoing interventions and drivers of change. In the Netherlands, such a long-term, adaptive flood risk management strat...

Adaptive co-management and learning are paramount for integrated flood risk management. Relevant literature focuses on adaptation at the level of physical and societal systems. The level of projects and programmes is largely overlooked, while they comprise interventions that adapt our physical systems and they provide opportunities for learning to...

Worldwide the frequency and impacts of flooding exhibit a steep increasing trend 1. The key drivers are the world's population growth and the increase of socioeconomic activities (development) in flood-prone areas, and society's growing interdependency on flood protection and drainage infrastructure of which a significant part is of unknown or poor...

Professionals responsible for managing water and flooding systems have always worked in partnership with others. The form and functioning of such partnerships has traditionally focused on delivering structural ‘solutions’. Now that the challenges faced by urban society are complex and changing relatively rapidly, it is timely to review how best to...

The Multi-Pattern Approach (MPA) is a new method that has been applied to understand the transition to integrated flood risk management (IFRM) in the Netherlands. This paper presents a detailed analysis of the outcomes of the 2.3 billion Euro flood safety programme Room for the River (RftR). 2 years of research, 55 interviews, a survey of 155 respo...

New flood risk management policies account for climate and socio-economic change by embracing a more integrated approach. Their implementation processes require: collaboration between a group of stakeholders; combining objectives and funding from various policy domains; consideration of a range of possible options at all spatial scale levels and fo...

This article describes how the governance arrangements of the 2.2 billion Euro water safety programme Room for the River are enabling a transition towards integrated river basin management in the Netherlands. We observe that in terms of integrating multiple objectives and spatial scales, the programme design and multi-level governance processes in...

The frequency and consequences of extreme flood events have rapidly increased worldwide in recent decades. After the emergency response and recovery works, often the political response is to ‘prevent catastrophes from happening ever again’. Large investments programmes in structural measures such as levee systems are rolled out. Contrary, this pape...

Het doel van het HSHL01 project ‘Klimaat in ruimtelijke keuzes’ is om een dialoog ondersteunend afwegingskader (DAK) te ontwikkelen en toe te passen. Met dit afwegingskader kunnen de betrokken partijen gezamenlijk de lange termijn effecten van klimaatverandering op het waterbeheer in een vroegtijdig stadium en op inzichtelijke wijze meewegen in...

Urban development and regeneration present windows of opportunity to help reduce flood vulnerability. Much recent research stresses the need for better integration of flood risk into planning processes. However, there is limited experience in incorporating flood risk management in urban planning. Demonstration projects can help in overcoming this l...

Urban development and regeneration present windows of opportunity to reduce flood vulnerability that are often not taken advantage of. Collaborative planning is needed to integrate planning and flood risk management and can be achieved by a social learning framework: Learning and Action Alliance (LAA). This paper presents a new framework on how to...

Implementation of sustainable water management that structurally takes into account climate change, urban development, demographic change, environmental change and economic growth is slow in practice, say the national government and researchers in the Netherlands. In order to stimulate implementation of sustainable water management in practice, man...

Urban floods cannot be managed in isolation at the city scale and responses to potential flood impacts are complicated by interlinked political, socio-economic and environmental changes. To understand the unique features of urban flood management, a framework should be developed in which spatio-temporal relations are further defined and investigate...

Climate change acts as a trend-breaker as well as creating a larger variability in the occurrence of extreme events. This results in increasing degrees of uncertainty towards which traditional probability based flood management policies might not provide adequate responses. Furthermore, ongoing processes of urbanization (both expansion and densific...

Climate change acts as a trend-breaker as well as creating a larger variability in the occurrence of extreme events. These result in increasing degrees of uncertainty towards which traditional probability based flood management policies might not provide adequate responses. Furthermore, ongoing processes of urbanization (both expansion and densific...

Over recent years there have been a number of attempts at integrated approaches being taken to water and flood risk management. Recent flooding events in Europe have triggered discussions about giving rivers back their nature (floodplains in stead of dikes). However, the emphasis tends to be on finding space for flood water in rural areas in order...

quickscan naar belemmeringen en oplossingen voor marktwerking na publiek-private kennisprojecten. Tevens verkenning van mogelijke impulsen voor innovatie in klimaatadaptief bouwen en gebiedsontwikkeling.

This paper describes the results of research into the contract arrangements and design processes for contractors in the road infrastructure industry. The changing institutional environment has led the industry to believe that more opportunities can be realised to the benefit of society (lower cost, higher quality, more efficient design and design p...

This paper describes the results of research into the contract arrangements and design processes for contractors in the road infrastructure industry. The changing institutional environment has led the industry to believe that more opportunities can be realized to the benefit of society (lower cost, higher quality, more efficient design and design p...