In the field of climate change adaptation, the future matters. River futures influence the way adaptation projects are implemented in rivers. In this paper, we challenge the ways in which dominant paradigms and expert claims monopolise the truth concerning policies and designs of river futures, thereby sidelining and delegitimising alternative river futures. So far, limited work has been performed on the power of river futures in the context of climate change adaptation. We conceptualised the power of river futures through river imaginaries, i.e., collectively performed and publicly envisioned reproductions of riverine socionatures mobilised through truth claims of social life and order. Using the Border Meuse project as a case study, a climate change adaptation project in a stretch of the river Meuse in the south of the Netherlands, and a proclaimed success story of climate adaptation in Dutch water management, we elucidated how three river imaginaries (a modern river imaginary, a market-driven imaginary, and an eco-centric river imaginary) merged into an eco-modern river imaginary. Importantly, not only did the river futures merge, but their aligned truth regimes also merged. Thus, we argue that George Orwell’s famous quote, “who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present, controls the past” can be extended to “who controls the future, controls how we see and act in the present, and how we rediscover the past”.
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In coastal and low-lying vulnerable delta cities, such as theRotterdam Metropolitan region and Metropolitan Manila, there has been anincrease in vulnerability of urban flooding and water quality problems.New approaches address the current and future effects of climate changeand increase urban quality, reduce vulnerability and increase water quality.New arrangements for international cooperation are set up in order toaddress these problems in the project ‘IWASTO’ (‘to correct and toprevent’) where several organisations from the Philippines and TheNetherlands join forces to rehabilitate rivers and introduce newinnovations for water quality monitoring and waste collection using the‘Research Design and Manufacaturing (RDM)’ approach. One of theconcrete results from this RDM approach in 2016 is the development andimplementation of the ‘Longganisa’, a waste collection tool that wasdesigned by a Dutch-Philippine team. In addition, the waterquality wasmeasured and mapped with innovating methods using apps in order tolocate and prioritize highly polluted areas. In the near future measures willbe implemented to rehabilitate the rivers in Manila and a knowledgeexchange forum will be set up to share the best management practices oninternational scale in countries as Indonesia, India and China.
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Worldwide, rivers face challenges due to human and climatic pressures. Floods, droughts, pollution, damming and hydropeaking are only a few examples of these pressures, and influence the way rivers flow. Climate change adaptation projects increase the incentive to domesticate rivers, often legitimised through expert views on (future) vulnerability and risk. This emerging river imaginary dominates current debates in many rivers in our world. River imaginaries reflect spatially bound hydrosocial territories in which multiple actors on multiple scales from multiples sectors operate to reach varying objectives. They include water flows, ecological systems, climate conditions, hydraulic infrastructure, financial means, institutional arrangements, legal frameworks and information/knowledge hubs. In the context of climate change adaptation, river imaginaries are strongly dependent on the extent to which climate change is expected to influence rivers through a mixture of probable, possible, desirable or preferable versions of a (future) river. As such, knowledge-structures of future making are scrutinised in this research by emphasising on the role of change, the role of futures and the role of experts. This presentation aims to elucidate how river imaginaries have influenced river management under climate change adaptation that resulted in large infrastructural projects. Through a study of the Meuse river, a concrete case of a imaginary came into being in the Dutch-Belgian Border-Meuse trajectory. Moreover, preliminary result from adaptation projects in the marshlands of the lower Magdalena in Colombia strengthen the dominate imaginary of technocratic and ecocentric approaches to climate change adaptation where an expert view on local knowledge dominates.
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The overall purpose of this consultancy was to support the activities under the Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Programme of the UN Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) in developing the 7th pan-European environmental assessment, an indicator based and thematic assessment, implemented jointly with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and in support of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The series of environmental assessments of the pan-European region provide up to-date and policy-relevant information on the interactions between the environment and society. This consultancy was to:> Draft the input on drivers and developments to chapter 1.2 of the assessment related to the environmental theme “4.2 Applying principles of circular economy to sustainable tourism”.> Suggest to UNECE and UNEP the most policy relevant indicators from UNECE-environmental, SDG indicators and from other indicator frameworks such as EEA or OECD for the environmental theme for the sub-chapter 4.2.> Assess the current state, trends and recent developments and prepare the substantive part of sub-chapter 4.2 (summary - part I) and an annex (part II) with the detailed analysis and findings.
In the last decade, the automotive industry has seen significant advancements in technology (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and autonomous vehicles) that presents the opportunity to improve traffic safety, efficiency, and comfort. However, the lack of drivers’ knowledge (such as risks, benefits, capabilities, limitations, and components) and confusion (i.e., multiple systems that have similar but not identical functions with different names) concerning the vehicle technology still prevails and thus, limiting the safety potential. The usual sources (such as the owner’s manual, instructions from a sales representative, online forums, and post-purchase training) do not provide adequate and sustainable knowledge to drivers concerning ADAS. Additionally, existing driving training and examinations focus mainly on unassisted driving and are practically unchanged for 30 years. Therefore, where and how drivers should obtain the necessary skills and knowledge for safely and effectively using ADAS? The proposed KIEM project AMIGO aims to create a training framework for learner drivers by combining classroom, online/virtual, and on-the-road training modules for imparting adequate knowledge and skills (such as risk assessment, handling in safety-critical and take-over transitions, and self-evaluation). AMIGO will also develop an assessment procedure to evaluate the impact of ADAS training on drivers’ skills and knowledge by defining key performance indicators (KPIs) using in-vehicle data, eye-tracking data, and subjective measures. For practical reasons, AMIGO will focus on either lane-keeping assistance (LKA) or adaptive cruise control (ACC) for framework development and testing, depending on the system availability. The insights obtained from this project will serve as a foundation for a subsequent research project, which will expand the AMIGO framework to other ADAS systems (e.g., mandatory ADAS systems in new cars from 2020 onwards) and specific driver target groups, such as the elderly and novice.
