Adaptive Planning for Management of Water Systems in Deltas

Course will be offered if enough students enroll in this elective course. Minimum number of students: 10. Decision will be communicated in week 1.4.

This elective course will not be offered in the study year 2025-2026.

MSc Students that are looking for courses related to governance and water management, the course TPM803 Building with Nature offers a worthwhile alternative.  TPM803 will be taught in Q2.

Society is vulnerable to unexpected or difficult to predict events that can boost, but more often damage social and economic activities and/or the natural environment. Can we prepare for these events given that their frequency, scope, and impact are uncertain and that climate change exacerbates the uncertainties? What measures may we take "top down or bottom up" to protect the functionality, reliability, and/or the returns on investments of existing infrastructures and other built structures? And, while we plan for dealing with climate change (or other uncertain contextual factors such as the economy or political stability) what processes do we need to take into account in relation to the preferred locations for housing and production?

Researchers and policy-makers are deeply engaged with these questions. In this course we study their contributions with regard to coping with water-related, deeply uncertain events with large scale, uncertain impacts. Examples in this course will relate to floods, droughts and sea level rise.

You will delve into literature that helps you understand the concepts and tools that play a role in planning and decision-making under deep uncertainty. We will discuss how these tools differ from conventional planning methods and under what conditions they may be useful.

One important tool that is being introduced in the water-domain is the ‘adaptation pathway.’ You will learn to develop "adaptation pathways". We will challenge you to critically reflect on the incentives that these pathways create for economic behavior. And you will learn how to set up an "implementation monitoring" plan that reflects the interests of the multiple stakeholders that are involved.