Estrategias sociales de prevención y adaptación Social ... - La RED

Smaller initiatives for building on mounds however has proved more successful. In the
polder of Overdiep, a plan was hatched, spurred by famers supposed to make space, to raise
their farmsteads on mounds as an alternative (Roth and Winnubst, 2009).
NB. Another adaptive, “living with the river” technology is exemplified by DuraVermeer’s
(a building consultancy) floating houses, inspired by Asian traditions, were built at
Maasbommel on the river Maas and attracted much international interest. Yet when I visited
them in 2007 they were pretty unsaleable and a followup seemed unlikely.
Combined Retention and Mounds: The North and South Meene Project
Another example of mounds as a solution for flood risk in the East Netherlands is that of
the Meene) (from Warner, et al., 2010). In 1998, heavy rainfall threatened four villages along
the river Ijssel. Regional authorities prepared the area for evacuation and for cutting the
dikes for controlled flooding. The cuts were only cancelled at the last minute, while evacuation
was already in place. When the regional Farmers’ Union called a public meeting, angry
residents demanded that dike cuts and evacuation would never be on the agenda again. The
water authority duly promised this and decided that the Meene area was to be a retention
area for regional flood safety purposes. Local residents would be protected by dikes in case
the detention area was to be used in a flood. Local residents however opined the proposed
dikes” locations had been planned too close to their houses, while farmers believed their interests
had been sacrificed for the safety of downstreamers, and that they had been presented
with a fait accompli. The Water Board devised an alternative: Instead of diking up residential
areas in the retention area, buildings and roads were to be placed on small elevations
(mounds) to ensure dry feet. Some residents decided to lobby the local authority who dragged
their feet on changing the local town and country planning. To meet the European
deadline, implementation would have to start without the formal planning procedure being
finalised. Inhabitants drove the price up for compensation.
While this incentive helped persuade one farmer opponent to terminate his operation
and offered up land, a small group was still prepared to block everything, which would not
only imperil the project but in so doing also residents and land owners . The Farmers’ Union
decided to reach out to the other resident stakeholders more, and came to act as a go-between
(broker) between residents and the authorities. In this role they reached an agreement
with the Water Board.
Why are these plans resisted A clue is that they the new plans are externally imposed
and not rooted in community experience any more. Another blue seems to be that returning
land to water is more counterintuitive than building mounds. We will delve into those in the
section below.
Land Reclamation and Building with Nature
Currently the dumping a large amount of sand into the sea to foster land accretion due to
largely predictable morphological processes. It is now also proposed as a solution for Bangladesh
where land scarcity is chronic. This form of land reclamation, sold as “best practice”
may not be so new either.
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