ESPACE 3rd Joint International Workshop

Day 1– Technical Sessions

The radisson, antwerp, belgium

WORKSHOP REPORT

N.B. This Workshop Report provides details of the discussions that took place on Day 1 of the ESPACE Workshop. All presentations and additional documents referred to in the text of this report are available on the website - see below.

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Attendance List for Workshop, Day 1

ESPACE Partners
Hampshire County Council (HCC) as Lead Partner /
  • Bryan Boult - Overall Chair and ESPACE Lead Partner
  • Chitra Nadarajah
  • Jill Rankin

Hampshire County Council as Partner /
  • Doogie Black

Environment Agency /
  • Tim Reeder
  • Stephen Walker
  • Bill Donovan

Regionaal Landschap Zenne, Zuun en Zonien /
  • Ann Gaeremynck
  • Ann Rekkers

South East Climate Change Partnership /
  • Mark Goldthorpe

South East England Regional Assembly /
  • David Payne
  • Joanna Cleasby

Surrey County Council /
  • Phil Sivell
  • Gary Black

Waterschap Rivierenland /
  • Niels Nijmeijer
  • Gerard Soppe

WestSussexCounty Council /
  • Tim Yair
  • Fran Wallington

Ministerie van VROM /
  • Marieke Soeters
  • Hans ten Hoeve

Bayerisches Landesamt fur Wasserwirtschaft /
  • Hans Weber
  • Thomas Beckmann

Extended Partners
BRANCH /
  • Claudia Chambers

Climate Change and Biosphere Centre, WaginengenUniversity /
  • Jeroen Aerts

Defra – Global Atmosphere Division /
  • Andy Deacon

Eurocities /
  • Eva Banos

FINADAPT /
  • Simo Haanpaa

Vlaamse Landmaatschappij - Flemish Land Agency /
  • Patrick Van Bockstal

UK Climate Impacts Programme /
  • Jacqueline Harman

Water UK /
  • Joanne Turner

Agenda – Day 1

08.45Welcome coffee

09.15Introduction

Session IModels & Tools – Chair Tim Reeder

09.30Joint Presentation on Models & Tools Analysis (Thomas Beckmann, Bayerisches Landesamt fur Wasserwirtschaft, Niels Nijmeijer, Waterschap Rivierenland & Bill Donovan, Environment Agency)

10.00Extended Partnership Comments

10.10Discussion

10.30Coffee

Session IIRaising Awareness – Chair Mark Goldthorpe

11.00Awareness Surveys (Ann Gaeremynck, Regionaal Landschap Zenne, Zuun en Zonien)

11.15Behavioural Studies (Doogie Black, Hampshire County Council)

11.30Extended Partnership Comments

11.40Discussion

12.00 Lunch in the Warande & Madison Room

Session IIIPlanning Policy – Chair Phil Sivell

14.00South East Plan (David Payne, South East England Regional Assembly)

14.15National & International Policy & Stakeholder Engagement (Marieke Soeters, Ministry van VROM)

14.30Extended Partnership Comments

14.40Discussion

15.00Close

15.45Cultural Tour. Coach departs from outside reception promptly at 15:45

17.45Return to Hotel

19.00Workshop dinner in Antwerp – coach departs from reception at 19:00

Introduction

Bryan Boult – Overall Chair

There are two aspects to our project - our partnership and what each of our partners wants to get out of the project, and the bigger picture of overall project outputs that we are all contributing towards. One of the things that is quite important for this particular meeting is to discuss how to work towards achieving the bigger picture.
People are beginning to look at ESPACE from across Europe. There is a lot of expectation being placed upon us, because the Partnership is investigating problems in much more detail than others and tackling issues that few other people are looking at. The expectation is that ESPACE will come up with recommendations that are of interest to a lot of other projects and to a lot of other countries and organisations that are not part of ESPACE. This can be concluded from the way in which the extended partnership is growing and from some of the other issues that will be discussed today.

There is therefore a lot of expectation placed on events such as this workshop to tease out some of these bigger issues, some of the wider interests.
Today is not just about looking at ESPACE actions and the detail of how to proceed - we are also looking at our strategic overview. It is important to think about the overall project and the overall delivery, for example, our common transnational strategy. This is something that the partnership needs to be thinking about and building towards at this workshop. Spatial planning guidance on adaptation to climate change - how do we put that together. The adoption of policy guidance - what mechanisms do we need? How do we go about that? What are the barriers to that? And recommendations towards the integration of policies into spatial planning systems at all levels across Europe. From the local level right through to the European policy level.
All of those issues and questions are the objectives of ESPACE. But they are the result of common actions. They are part of a bigger picture built up from what we are doing as individuals, partners, and as a combination of partners. This workshop will start to address this bigger picture.
There are three topics that that this workshop will focus on - models and tools, raising awareness and planning policy. The presentations that will follow are based around those three topics. Within each of those topics there are key actions that are being delivered by partners, either individually or transnationally by partners, that contribute towards those overall outputs.
In looking at those three subjects there are common themes, questions and issues that need to be addressed, both during the presentations but more importantly, during the discussions at this workshop.
One of the common issues is identifying the gaps:

What are the gaps that are preventing something happening? Are they gaps that prevent adaptation to climate change being implemented, for example, the lack of an institutional framework, the lack of policies or legislation, lack of awareness in planners or policy levels?
Secondly, what are the barriers stopping the integration of adaptation to climate change in spatial planning? It could be all of these. One example of a barrier could be complexity of planning systems, or the complexity of frameworks. It could be the inability of institutions or frameworks to actually support adaptation, perhaps because they have different priorities. It could an inability of institutions to deal with the uncertainty of climate change impacts. It could be uncertainty of the extent of which adaptation is required. It could be uncertainty as to what measures will be successful or which ones are appropriate. It could be a combination of all of these barriers.
The third issue that we need to look at is what are the opportunities that are available to ESPACE. For example, the lessons that are being learnt through this partnership and from our Extended Partners and how to link those together.
Gaps are also opportunities. If there is a gap then perhaps the ESPACE Project can address a way of filling that gap. If what is needed is lacking, can we create it? Is that something that we have the knowledge and the evidence to assist with, or can we adapt the system that we are working with to fit those needs?
These are the very issues that the ESPACE Project should be starting to address now. We are now half way through the project, it is therefore important to start thinking about where the project is going. Much effort has been put into building partnerships and scoping the concepts of what we are trying to do. The extended partnership has been extremely successful in building transnational actions, and all partners should be aware of how much value this adds to our actions.
We are now at the stage where we have got to rise above those actions and start to think about the common goals, common objectives, and where the project is going. It is important to remember how quickly time passes when you are dealing with a subject that is not your own, and when there are common actions to co-ordinate it is very easy to think that someone else is dealing with them. It is very easy to think that somewhere out there the answers are appearing and all you need to do is to take them and apply them. These very ideas and answers are going to come from all the people around the table, and today is a very important opportunity to begin to do that.
The presentations will outline the detail, information, analysis, and real life examples. The aim of the workshop is to take the presentations and to build upon them, thinking about the overall project objectives.

The discussion will be around those overall points:

  • How the actions are contributing to the overall outputs of ESPACE?
  • What delivery mechanisms are required?
  • What is the role of partners and extended partners? For example, outside of the core ESPACE partnership, in our extended partnership?
  • Do we have opportunities to influence institutional frameworks that we don’t have within the partnership?
  • What is missing or lacking?
  • How do we address gaps?
  • What will the transnational benefits and the added values?
  • What lessons are being learnt and how are they being integrated into outcomes?
  • And what are the key issues going to be within those three topic areas of gaps, barriers and opportunities?

By the end of the workshop, the partnership should have a much clearer picture of how all the interactions are building into that bigger picture, and to begin to scope the bigger picture of what the fixed points that we are working towards and what the areas are that we are going to have to develop.

This workshop should also address:

  • where the next meeting is going to take place;
  • what issues and topics need to be addressed at in the next meeting; and
  • what progress the project is making.

By the end of this 3rd workshop, we will be really shifting the focus towards looking at the end of the project and how we are going to get there.

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ESPACE WORKSHOP NO 36 APRIL 2005

Technical Session on Partner Actions & Developing Outputs of the ESPACE Project

Session 1 Models and Tools

SESSION 1 MODELS AND TOOLS - CHAIR: TIM REEDER
Tim Reeder - Environment Agency – Session Chair & ESPACE Partner
The Environment Agency recently held a workshop at the Thames Barrier where the partnership had a session on decision making and uncertainty, summarising the tools and models that ESPACE is developing. The following is a joint presentation looking at the strengths and weaknesses of the various tools and models that the Environment Agency, Bavarian Water Management Agency and the Water Board Rivierenland are developing. All three partners are at the same early stage of this work of comparison to work out an integrated approach, and the Environment Agency have already produced as a prototype an interactive CD.

The following presentations can be downloaded from the ESPACE Intranet by both Extended Partners and Partners under the workshops section

‘Models and Tools Analysis Approach and Application in the River Main basin’, Thomas Beckmann, Bavarian Water Management Agency

Decision-Making in the Thames EstuaryBill Donovan, Environment Agency

Models and Tools Analyses, Niels Nijmeijer – Water Board Rivierenland

DISCUSSION
Tim Reeder - Environment Agency – Session Chair & ESPACE Partner We are still in the process of developing the real FloodRanger or ‘FloodRanger Pro’ as it is called. It is based on a game which initially had a pretend landscape. What we have done through ESPACE is open that up - there now is real data inputted. We held a workshop when we originally set this project off which showed quite a lot of interest from planners. Once we have got it fully finalised we are going to get more engaged. In the meantime there has been a lot of interest from all sorts of people in the use of FloodRanger, the original game, in terms of illustrating problems and how to learn how to make decisions.
Jeroen Aerts - Climate Change and Biosphere Centre, WaginengenUniversity -Extended Partner
I have a couple of questions. It strikes me that all three presentations are essentially about water management. That is good for me because I am a scientist in water management, and I also think that spatial planners can learn from water management in this respect. But it is also your thought, that when we talk about spatial planning, spatial planners can learn from the water management approach to climate change impacts?
Secondly, when I compare the three cases, I think that the German case is very much focussed on hydrology and I was wondering whether when you assessed impacts from climate change whether you also discovered new measures, apart from designing larger reservoirs. Because, when I compared it with the Netherlands, we have the old fashioned measures like weirs, but also we thought about involving spatial planning in searching for a space to store temporarily water on agricultural land. Did you also do that? Did you also search for new types of measures, apart from, let’s say, the measures you already considered for the last couple of decades?
The last question is for Tim Reeder. You said first that you involved different types of indicators, habitats, finally you said you only look at flood risk. It was a little bit contradictory to me. Did you consider all types of indicators? Not only water related indicators but also socio-economic indicators and ecological indicators?
Tim Reeder - Environment Agency – Session Chair & ESPACE Partner ESPACE is aimed at spatial planning in relation to water management issues. In a very broad summary. You are right in emphasising that we are looking at water management but we are very much trying to focus on the spatial planning system. Perhaps that will come out in the spatial planning section.
Jeroen Aerts - Climate Change and Biosphere Centre, WaginengenUniversity -Extended Partner

I am sorry but I did not really see the involvement of spatial planners with indicators. Because that is essentially what you try to do. Obviously it is about water management and spatial planning, but do the communications involve the spatial planners themselves?
Bryan Boult - Overall Chair and ESPACE Lead Partner
The project is very much looking at spatial planning, but we are using water management as the focus because it is one of the areas where it is very clear to see the impacts of climate change. It is also one which demonstrates very different timescales. I think that came over very much in the Thames barrier presentation, that there are different timescales, different scales of adaptation measures that need to be taken into account in spatial planning. One of our partners is the regional planning body for South East of England and one of the case studies that we are looking at is the Regional plan for South East England. That is the whole spatial plan. David Payne is a partner here and you will see in the third session we are talking about planning policies. Some of your questions will be answered there.
One of the key themes that all those three studies are looking at is how to translate their work for the non-specialist. As water engineers come up with what appear to them to be very clear technical solutions to problems, you have to engage with other stakeholders, including non- technical experts, and so a common theme through all the presentations is how to make those models and presentation understandable for a wide range of people. Also how do you, as an engineer, convince the spatial planner and help the spatial planner to take what you see as a very technical answer but which has all sorts of other ramifications in terms of spatial planning.
Jeroen Aerts - Climate Change and Biosphere Centre, WaginengenUniversity -Extended Partner

After the events two years ago it is possible in Germany to insure yourself against flooding. Are you aware of such development in Bavaria? Are people insuring themselves against flooding?

Thomas Beckmann - ESPACE Partner - Bayerisches Landesamt fur Wasserwirtschaft
There was an investigation into this and I think about 6% people were insured before the floods and afterwards only about 10% people more had insurance. Also precautions were very low after this event. Only 20% of the people who are in real danger have their own precautions, such as store sandbags.

Bill Donovan - ESPACE Partner – Environment Agency
I would like to pick up on the idea that we are developing other options other than civil engineering. Primarily, we have got an enormous sunken investment in the Thames, in water barriers, but we are also very aware that by doing that as the sea levels rises we are going to lose inter-tidal habitat. We have got plans to put in 110,000 homes into the flood plain. We have got to be thinking about other options, and that is something we are doing by going out and talking to our stakeholders.
Regarding indicators. We are primarily concerned with flood risk. The models that I showed are the main focus, however we are looking at indicators of risk other than just damage to property. We are thinking about habitat and floodplain, social vulnerability. What is not in the models is illustrating the impact on the ecology. We can show how it might affect flood risk but it is very difficult in the same model to show whether is going to have an impact on ecology.
Jeroen Aerts - Climate Change and Biosphere Centre, WaginengenUniversity -Extended Partner