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206Natural and human-made disastersBox 8.10 Managing socio-ecological systems to protect human settlements in The NetherlandsThe provision ofbasic services andsecurity of tenurehas many positiveconsequences,including thereduction of vulnerabilityto disasterMuch of The Netherlands comprises reclaimed lowlands andestuarine systems for the Meuse, Waal and Rhine rivers. Managingflood risk in this country, and protecting urban as well as ruralsettlements, livelihoods and assets, has required an integratedsocio-ecological systems approach. This approach has developedover time until now and each aspect of coastal and riverine riskmanagement can be understood to protect not only local assets,but also those of the linked socio-ecological system, and to takepeople’s changing values into account.The long timeframe needed to construct the EasternScheldt Dam, which was initiated in 1953, led to the project beinghalted in 1967. Originally intended to protect people against floodingfrom the sea, the barrier designs took little else intoconsideration. The original design aim was to create a freshwaterlake from the Eastern Scheldt. However, during the late 1960s, newecological awareness and recognition of the value of coastalresources such as shellfisheries for local livelihoods stimulatedredesign. Because of the controversy, and the eventual politicalwillingness to incorporate a dialogue on the process surroundingthe project, technical innovations exceeded expectations, and nowthe barrier is one of the most highly regarded water managementstructures in the country, if not the world.A second major technological accomplishment was theMaeslant Barrier, constructed in the New Waterway. The NewWaterway was a shipping avenue that had to remain open. Oneoption would have been to raise existing dikes, which had provencostly in the past and had also generated protests from residents.Dikes in The Netherlands can be several metres wide and homeshave been constructed upon them, so building higher dikes oftenmeans removing property, often at great cost. To come up with asolution that was acceptable across the spectrum of stakeholders,the Ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Managementheld a competition for an innovative design for the New Waterway.Like the Eastern Scheldt Dam, the Maeslant Barrier was a technologicalbreakthrough and was completed in 1997.Both of these technological responses to flood hazard weremanaged at a national scale and were underpinned by an openapproach that enabled multiple stakeholders to debate and shapethe final technological outcome. The open process took more timeand money, but resulted in better solutions, highlighting howsuccessful engineering-based responses to risk management canbenefit from taking wider social and ecological contexts intoconsideration. The process resulted in a shift in flood managementfrom a perspective that was oriented solely to providing safety, toone that, today, seeks to arrive at compromises with ecological andcultural demands.Source: Orr et al, 2007An emerging alternativeto theextension of formalplanning intoinformal settlementsat risk is to workwith communityassociations todevelop local landuseplans…cal expansion of cities, planners are often unable to keep upwith mapping new settlements, let alone planning land usefor them. Set against these pressures, the lack of human andfinancial resources and the low profile often enjoyed by landuseplanning in urban planning departments are startling.Innovative methods for reaching populations at risk are thusneeded.Where there is political commitment and resourcesare made available, slums can be successfully brought intoformal planning programmes. In Brazil, Egypt, Mexico, SouthAfrica, Thailand and Tunisia, large-scale commitment toupgrading and service provision has led to an overall reductionin the growth rates of slums. 45 The provision of basicservices 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, moneyand energy available for investment in household and, collectively,community improvement.If risks are too high or disaster has already struck, rehousingcan be an option. However, careful consultationwith those to be re-housed and the community into whichpeople will be moved is essential. Box 8.11 provides anexample of a re-housing and relocation programme thatsuccessfully brought together local government and slumcommunity leaders. Without significant local consultation,re-housing is in danger of leading to the break-up of socialnetworks and livelihood resources upon which the poor andvulnerable rely. 46There is an added risk in re-housing programmes if thealternative sites are also disaster prone. Naga City in thePhilippines is relatively small (127,000 residents) but has aconsiderable population of low-income citizens. The NagaCity Integrated Disaster Management Plan has had significantconsequences for low-income households. Before the planwas instituted, an ongoing slum resettlement programme hadidentified 33 resettlement areas. However, it was found that19 of these were in flood-prone areas. In light of this, alternativesites were found that were free of flood hazard, whilestill offering employment opportunities. 47An emerging alternative to the extension of formalplanning into informal settlements at risk is to work withcommunity associations to develop local land-use plans thatcan be extended upwards to meet with the formal planningsystem. These plans are owned and researched by localcommunities and have limited legal standing, but provide amechanism for those left outside of the formal planningprocess to identify land-use challenges to disaster resilience.Such planning takes place at the micro scale and is mostsuccessful in informal settlements that have not yet consolidated.At the pre-consolidation stage, there is someflexibility in land use so that strong community groups canpolice collective decisions to, for example, leave spacesbetween housing to allow for access routes for emergencyvehicles. The challenge to this approach remains the extentto which community plans can be welcomed by andintegrated with formal planning systems. A careful balancehas to be met between the strategic emphasis of city-levelland-use planning and the more local concerns of communityplans.