Improving suitability of urban canals and canalized rivers for transportation, thermal energy extraction and recreation in two European delta cities.

Canals and canalized rivers form a major part of surface water systems in European delta cities and societal ambitions to use these waters increase. This is the first assessment of how suitability of these waters can improve for three important uses: transportation, thermal energy extraction (TEE) and recreation. We assess suitability with Suitability Indices (SIs) and identify which alterations in the water system are needed to improve SI scores in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Ghent, Belgium.

Planning support tools and their effects in participatory urban adaptation workshops.

In the face of a changing climate, many cities are engaged in adaptation planning and are using participatory workshops to involve stakeholders in these initiatives. Different tools are being used to structure the process and content of participatory planning workshops, but it is unclear what effect the tools have on the workshops and their results. We evaluated three different tools (Group Model Building, the Adaptation Support Tool, and the Stress Test Guideline) and a tool-free approach in repeated simulated workshops, to observe and compare (1) the way workshops played out, and (2) the direct outcomes that were achieved.