Projects Socio-hydrological feedbacks and risk management

Projects

• RESHAPE (2023-2028)

  Dutch sand landscapes, >50% of the Netherlands, are vulnerable to droughts, floods, and pollution and are losing soil carbon and biodiversity. These problems are expected to worsen with climate change. The need for a rigorous transformation towards resilient landscapes facilitated by robust water systems is widely recognised, but how to achieve this remains unclear. RESHAPE (Nature-inspired water system solutions for RESilient DutcH sand landscAPEs ) project aims to 1) develop nature-inspired water system solutions to reactivate landscape resilience and 2) identify effective economic and governance arrangements to achieve this transformation. RESHAPE brings together a strong interdisciplinary consortium of leading academics and key players in Dutch water and landscape management, integrating 1) Ecohydrology, 2) Natural Resource Economics, 3) Land-Use Planning, 4) Regional Hydrology, and 5) Environmental Governance. The IVM provides its expertise in drought and flood risks as well as the associated measuring and modelling of behaviour of various stakeholder groups in society, values they place on environmental goods and services. Therefore, the IVM is contributing to the following disciplines:

  • Regional Hydrology by investigating (sub-) surface and climate characteristics that shape the current and potential future hydrological resilience of water-systems of Dutch catchments in a broader context.
  • All the disciplines by constructing system dynamics models that help elucidating the feedbacks among various components and in particular the social, ecological, and hydrological systems.

  Please visit the project website for more information on the academic, public and private partners: https://reshape.labs.vu.nl/

  Contact information: Dr Anne van Loon.

• INNOVATING CLIMATE SERVICES THROUGH INTEGRATING SCIENTIFIC AND LOCAL KNOWLEDGE (I-CISK) (2021-2025)

  Climate services have a crucial role in empowering citizens, stakeholders and decision-makers in taking climate-smart decisions that are informed by a solid scientific evidence base. The EU H2020 funded I-CISK project will innovate existing climate services by integrating local data and knowledge, perceptions and preferences of users with scientific knowledge. I-CISK will develop next-generation climate services based on a co-production approach so that climate services meet the climate information needs of citizens, decision-makers and stakeholders at the spatial and temporal scale relevant to them.

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• BRIDGE – Business Recovery through Innovative Disaster-response and Governmental policy Efforts (2023-2025)

  Businesses around the world struggled through the COVID-19 pandemic, from facing lockdowns and public health restrictions to shifts in consumer demands, supply chain disruptions, and labour shortages. Especially small and medium enterprises, as well as minority-owned businesses were disproportionally impacted in the pandemic. BRIDGE investigates how the pandemic changed businesses’ capacity to withstand future shocks, and what kind of policies helped or hindered businesses to strengthen their adaptive capacity. This research will help improve government responses to future crises, including climate related disasters, in ways that promote a more equitable, sustainable, and resilient post-pandemic reality.

  This project consists of multiple case studies from 10-15 cities globally, conducted by an international interdisciplinary research team that draws on their diverse regional, methodological, and disciplinary perspectives. The large scale systemic comparative research is a novel approach in the field of disaster studies, allowing for the integration of local contexts and aiming to develop new analytic approaches for understanding disaster recovery.

  This research is conducted in collaboration with University of British Columbia, Kawaga Univeristy, University of Florida, University of Canterbury, North Dakota State University, University of California Los Angeles, Resilient Organizations, National Institute of Standards and Technology (US).

  Contact information: Dr Marleen de Ruiter and Sophie Buijs.

  For more information, please visit the project website: https://brdg.ubc.ca.

• COASTMOVE (2020-2025)

  We study the effect of sea level rise until 2100 and its effect on global coastal flood risk. Through coupling and an agent-based model to a global flood risk model, we can simulate projections in flood risk due to SLR and socio-economic trends.

  Future sea level rise (SLR) will increase coastal flood risk1 and threatens to displace up to 187 million people. COASTMOVE will develop a global agent-based model (ABM) to assess which coastal areas will be protected against sea level rise, and which areas will be abandoned through migration. This project studies the effect of sea level rise until 2100 and its effect on global coastal flood risk. Through coupling and agent-based model to a global flood risk model, we can simulate projections in flood risk due to SLR and socio-economic trends. The agent-based model simulates the adaptive behaviour of households in the coastal zone, governments and the private sector (e.g. insurance). To be able to model the behaviour of households, COASTMOVE will conduct household surveys across five countries to study household adaptation and migration behaviour under current and future coastal risk. The countries include Mozambique (Beira area), the U.S. (New York City), France, Republic of the Marshall Islands and Argentina (Buenos Aires). The project will deliver high resolution (1x1km²) global migration maps; show protection levels for different coastal areas, and projects insurance premiums for different coastal areas.

  Generic adaption approaches for sea level rise. After IPPC CZMS (1990)

   This research is conducted in collaboration with Deltares, University of Florida, UCSB, JRC, PIK. 

  If you participated in our study as a respondent to the household surveys in Mozambique, the U.S., France, Republic of the Marshall Islands, or Argentina, please find relevant information on how we protect and process your personal data in our privacy statement.

  Contact information: Prof. Jeroen Aerts, Dr Toon Haer, Prof. Wouter Botzen and Prof. Philip Ward.

• DOWN2EARTH (2020-2024)

  The Horn of Africa is a region plagued by recurrent droughts, which makes rural communities extremely vulnerable to water scarcity, food insecurity and economic losses during drought periods. Severe and prolonged droughts result in reduced soil moisture and groundwater reserves, which can lead to food insecurity, livestock loss and major water shortages; resources on which millions of people within the Horn of Africa drylands heavily rely. 

  The EU-funded DOWN2EARTH project will improve community-centric adaptation and resilience to droughts in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. The project will assess and address critical research gaps within these dryland regions, including i) how climate change affects the characteristics of rainfall and groundwater storage, ii) how the evolution of hydrological processes will impact the people who depend on them, and (iii) how local communities can best adapt to drought risk. DOWN2EARTH will employ state-of-the-art seasonal forecasts and decadal projections of climate change and develop community-relevant climate services for the agro-pastoral populations, through for example a mobile application. 

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• Climate Adaptation Modelling, Directorate General for Climate Action, EU (2019-2021)

  The project includes:

  • a comprehensive assessment of climate adaptation model and tool methods, including recommendations for future research and a database detailing the use of individual models and tools,
  • a recommended approach for future work on climate adaptation to inform the next EU Commission climate adaptation strategy,
  • a series of use cases and case studies to highlight the potential application of rapid analysis of reviewed models and tools for policy and decision making.

  This study was conducted in collaboration with Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici (CMCC), Deltares, Paul Watkiss Associates (PWA).

  Contact information: Dr Marleen de Ruiter, Prof. Jeroen Aerts and Prof. Wouter Botzen.

• Forecast-based Financing for Food Security – F4S (2019-2021)

  The F4S project is seeking to strengthened the shift by the humanitarian actors from response after a shock/disasters to early measures/actions, before the first signs of food insecurity by:

  1. developing an impact-based forecasting model using machine learning on food insecurity drivers;
  2. collecting local knowledge on food insecurity and beneficiaries’ preference to key design elements of cash transfer programmes;
  3. evaluating the cost-effectiveness of different cash transfer mechanisms;
  4. exploring potential channels to disseminate knowledge and make first steps towards operationalisation.

  Contact information: Dr Gabriela Guimarães Nobre.

• RESILIO – bring your roof to life (2018-2021)

  With the RESILIO (Resilience nEtwork of Smart Innovative cLImate-adapative rOoftops) project, 10,000 m² of smart blue green roofs are being realized in Amsterdam. This is necessary because it rains more often and harder, as well as getting hotter. Excess rainwater is stored underneath the green layer of plants on the roof. The water can be retained or discharged with a smart valve connected to the weather forecast. This helps us to keep our feet dry and our heads cool. The roofs provide space for new nature, and that is good for the city. We bring roofs to life!

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