Global Report on Human Settlements 2007 - PoA-ISS

206
Natural and human-made disasters
Box 8.10 Managing socio-ecological systems to protect human settlements in The Netherlands
The provision of
basic services and
security of tenure
has many positive
consequences,
including the
reduction of vulnerability
to disaster
Much of The Netherlands comprises reclaimed lowlands and
estuarine systems for the Meuse, Waal and Rhine rivers. Managing
flood risk in this country, and protecting urban as well as rural
settlements, livelihoods and assets, has required an integrated
socio-ecological systems approach. This approach has developed
over time until now and each aspect of coastal and riverine risk
management can be understood to protect not only local assets,
but also those of the linked socio-ecological system, and to take
people’s changing values into account.
The long timeframe needed to construct the Eastern
Scheldt Dam, which was initiated in 1953, led to the project being
halted in 1967. Originally intended to protect people against flooding
from the sea, the barrier designs took little else into
consideration. The original design aim was to create a freshwater
lake from the Eastern Scheldt. However, during the late 1960s, new
ecological awareness and recognition of the value of coastal
resources such as shellfisheries for local livelihoods stimulated
redesign. Because of the controversy, and the eventual political
willingness to incorporate a dialogue on the process surrounding
the project, technical innovations exceeded expectations, and now
the barrier is one of the most highly regarded water management
structures in the country, if not the world.
A second major technological accomplishment was the
Maeslant Barrier, constructed in the New Waterway. The New
Waterway was a shipping avenue that had to remain open. One
option would have been to raise existing dikes, which had proven
costly in the past and had also generated protests from residents.
Dikes in The Netherlands can be several metres wide and homes
have been constructed upon them, so building higher dikes often
means removing property, often at great cost. To come up with a
solution that was acceptable across the spectrum of stakeholders,
the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management
held a competition for an innovative design for the New Waterway.
Like the Eastern Scheldt Dam, the Maeslant Barrier was a technological
breakthrough and was completed in 1997.
Both of these technological responses to flood hazard were
managed at a national scale and were underpinned by an open
approach that enabled multiple stakeholders to debate and shape
the final technological outcome. The open process took more time
and money, but resulted in better solutions, highlighting how
successful engineering-based responses to risk management can
benefit from taking wider social and ecological contexts into
consideration. The process resulted in a shift in flood management
from a perspective that was oriented solely to providing safety, to
one that, today, seeks to arrive at compromises with ecological and
cultural demands.
Source: Orr et al, 2007
An emerging alternative
to the
extension of formal
planning into
informal settlements
at risk is to work
with community
associations to
develop local landuse
plans…
cal expansion of cities, planners are often unable to keep up
with mapping new settlements, let alone planning land use
for them. Set against these pressures, the lack of human and
financial resources and the low profile often enjoyed by landuse
planning in urban planning departments are startling.
Innovative methods for reaching populations at risk are thus
needed.
Where there is political commitment and resources
are made available, slums can be successfully brought into
formal planning programmes. In Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, South
Africa, Thailand and Tunisia, large-scale commitment to
upgrading and service provision has led to an overall reduction
in the growth rates of slums. 45 The provision of basic
services and security of tenure has many positive consequences,
including the reduction of vulnerability to disaster.
Households that can access basic needs are not only healthier,
but often have more time and, as a consequence, money
and energy available for investment in household and, collectively,
community improvement.
If risks are too high or disaster has already struck, rehousing
can be an option. However, careful consultation
with those to be re-housed and the community into which
people will be moved is essential. Box 8.11 provides an
example of a re-housing and relocation programme that
successfully brought together local government and slum
community leaders. Without significant local consultation,
re-housing is in danger of leading to the break-up of social
networks and livelihood resources upon which the poor and
vulnerable rely. 46
There is an added risk in re-housing programmes if the
alternative sites are also disaster prone. Naga City in the
Philippines is relatively small (127,000 residents) but has a
considerable population of low-income citizens. The Naga
City Integrated Disaster Management Plan has had significant
consequences for low-income households. Before the plan
was instituted, an ongoing slum resettlement programme had
identified 33 resettlement areas. However, it was found that
19 of these were in flood-prone areas. In light of this, alternative
sites were found that were free of flood hazard, while
still offering employment opportunities. 47
An emerging alternative to the extension of formal
planning into informal settlements at risk is to work with
community associations to develop local land-use plans that
can be extended upwards to meet with the formal planning
system. These plans are owned and researched by local
communities and have limited legal standing, but provide a
mechanism for those left outside of the formal planning
process to identify land-use challenges to disaster resilience.
Such planning takes place at the micro scale and is most
successful in informal settlements that have not yet consolidated.
At the pre-consolidation stage, there is some
flexibility in land use so that strong community groups can
police collective decisions to, for example, leave spaces
between housing to allow for access routes for emergency
vehicles. The challenge to this approach remains the extent
to which community plans can be welcomed by and
integrated with formal planning systems. A careful balance
has to be met between the strategic emphasis of city-level
land-use planning and the more local concerns of community
plans.