Hydrology and hydraulics expertise in participatory processes for climate change adaptation in the Dutch Meuse

Abstract

Many scientists feel that scientific outcomes are not sufficiently taken into account in policy-making. The research reported in this paper shows what happens with scientific information during such a process. In 2001 the Dutch Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management commissioned their regional office in Limburg to assess how flood management objectives can be achieved in future in the Dutch Meuse valley, assuming climate change will increase peak discharges. To ensure political support, regional discussion rounds were to help assess the measures previously identified. This paper discusses the ways in which hydrological and hydraulic expertise was input, understood and used in this assessment process. Project participants as a group had no trouble contesting assumptions and outcomes. Nevertheless, water expertise was generally accepted as providing facts, once basic choices such as starting situation had been discussed and agreed. The technical constraints determined that politically unacceptable measures would have to be selected to achieve the legally binding flood management objective. As a result, no additional space will be set aside for future flood management beyond the already reserved floodplain. In this case, political arguments clearly prevail over policy objectives, with hydraulic expertise providing decisive arbitration between the two.

Transforming adaptation. Authoritative knowledge for climate change governance

“…Especially the entrance of new demands, such as the ecological (Disco, 2002) Climate change is a more recent demand for water management (Van den Brink, Vink et al, 2013). However and first, most of these studies focus on policy and decision making (for notable exceptions see Edelenbos et al, 2011;Wesselink, Vriend, Barneveld, Krol & Bijker, 2009), leaving the production and processing of knowledge relating to these new demands underexposed and focusing on knowledge (non-)use (Kirchhoff, Lemos & Engle, 2013;Rayner et al, 2005). Second, even though Dutch water governance is amply studied, most scholarly attention is reserved for studies on coastal (Bijker, 2007;Meijerink, 2005) or river (Wiering & Arts, 2006;Wiering & Immink, 2006) management.…”

Acting, predicting and intervening in a socio-hydrological world

“…A number of explicitly hydrological examples regarding conflicts over water have challenged this view (e.g. Kropp, 2005;Wesselink et al, 2009;Weber et al, 2011;Austin et al, 2012;Smith et al, 2012). For instance, Kropp (2005) describes the debate over renewal of water license abstractions for hydroelectric power exploitation in the River Isar, Germany.…”

Current and future challenges facing transboundary river basin management

“…The observed rainfall and hydrological record traditionally used for infrastructure design is no longer a stable foundation upon which estimated lifespans (within feasible safety factors) may be developed . The necessary work of reconciling global and basin‐level hydrological models cannot escape the even greater uncertainty originating from the politics of ‘expert opinion’, and pertinent queries about modeling assumptions (related for instance to the omission of soil or virtual water)…”