Deltas, located at the transition zones between open seas and rivers, offer fertile land, natural seaports, inland water connections and fresh water. As a result, they provide ideal locations for settlement and trade. Across the globe, population growth and rapid development result in high urbanization and population densities in delta’s. At the same time, these areas are often prone to water-related challenges such as flooding; subsidence, sea level rise, droughts and increased river discharges as well as man-made interventions such as draining, impermeable surfaces and the removal of natural discharge canals, add to water-safety risks. Some of these factors are triggered or amplified by climate change.

Designs and strategies that are currently developed and implemented have to be robust and adaptable. They should accommodate for future economic and demographic developments and additional (un)expected effects from climate change. Instead of developing and implementing fixed blueprints, this requires entirely new, holistic design approaches that focus on adaptive pathways for development. Research by design approaches, in which multidisciplinary teams pivot around designers, address this challenge.

When designing for resilience, many urban design interventions are available for incorporation as building blocks in flood risk strategies. In her lecture, Anne Loes Nillesen will show several successful examples of urban flood risk interventions on different scales, varying from amphibious houses to integrated sea barrier designs and resilient coastal cities.

Successful interventions cannot be simply copied from one location to another: context is essential for their viability. Anne Loes will show examples of urban flood risk development strategies from the Dutch Delta Programme, the Bangladesh Deltaplan and the Water as Leverage for Resilient Cities Asia project (also Bangladesh). She will demonstrate how similar design approaches lead to completely different design strategies, as a result of different contexts.