Triggered by recent flood catastrophes and increasing concerns about climate change, scientists as well as policy-makers increasingly call for making long-term water policies to enable a transformation towards flood resilience. A key question is how to make these long-term policies adaptive so that they are able to deal with uncertainties and changing circumstances. The paper proposes three conditions for making long-term water policies adaptive, which are then used to evaluate a new Dutch water policy approach called 'Adaptive Delta Management'. Analysing this national policy approach and its translation to the Rotterdam region reveals that Dutch policy-makers are torn between adaptability and the urge to control. Reflecting on this dilemma, the paper suggests a stronger focus on monitoring and learning to strengthen the adaptability of long-term water policies. Moreover, increasing the adaptive capacity of society also requires a stronger engagement with local stakeholders including citizens and businesses.
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Adaptive governance describes the purposeful collective actions to resist, adapt, or transform when faced with shocks. As governments are reluctant to intervene in informal settlements, community based organisations (CBOs) self-organize and take he lead. This study explores under what conditions CBOs in Mathare informal settlement, Nairobi initiate and sustain resilience activities during Covid-19. Study findings show that CBOs engage in multiple resilience activities, varying from maladaptive and unsustainable to adaptive, and transformative. Two conditions enable CBOs to initiate resilience activities: bonding within the community and coordination with other actors. To sustain these activities over 2.5 years of Covid-19, CBOs also require leadership, resources, organisational capacity, and network capacity. The same conditions appear to enable CBOs to engage in transformative activities. How-ever, CBOs cannot transform urban systems on their own. An additional condition, not met in Mathare, is that governments, NGOs, and donor agencies facilitate, support, and build community capacities. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Adaptive governance by community-based organisations: Community resilience initiatives during Covid‐19 in Mathare, Nairobi. which has been published in final form at doi/10.1002/sd.2682. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions
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This research contributes to understanding and shaping systems for OFMSW separation at urban Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs, such as offices, shops and service providers). Separating SMEs’ organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) is both an opportunity and a serious challenge for the transition towards circular cities. It is an opportunity because OFMSW represents approximately 40% of the total waste mass generated by these companies. It is challenging because post-collection separation is not feasible for OFMSW. Therefore, SMEs disposing of waste should separate their solid waste so that processing the organic fraction for reuse and recycling is practical and attainable. However, these companies do not experience direct advantages from the extra efforts in separating waste, and much of the OFMSW ends up in landfills, often resulting in unnecessary GHG emissions. Therefore, governments and waste processors are looking for ways to improve the OFMSW separation degree by urban companies disposing of waste through policies for behaviour change.There are multiple types of personnel at companies disposing of waste. These co-workers act according to their values, beliefs and norms. They adapt their behaviour continuously, influenced by the physical environment, events over time and self-evaluation of their actions. Therefore, waste separation at companies can be regarded as a Socio-Technical Complex Adaptive System (STCAS). Agent-based modelling and simulation are powerful methods to help understand STCAS. Consequently, we have created an agent-based model representing the evolution of behaviour regarding waste separation at companies in the urban environment. The model aims to show public and private stakeholders involved in solid waste collection, transport and processing to what extent behaviour change policies can shape the system towards desired waste separation degrees.We have co-created the model with participants utilising literature and empirical data from a case study on the transition of the waste collection system of a business park located at a former harbour area in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. First, a conceptual model of the system and the environment was set up through participatory workshops, surveys and interviews with stakeholders, domain experts and relevant actors. Together with our case participants, five policies that affect waste separation behaviour were included in the model. To model the behaviour of each company worker’s values, beliefs and norms during the separation and disposal of OFMSW, we have used the Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) Theory by Stern et al. (1999). We have collected data on waste collection behaviour and separation rates through interviews, workshops and a literature study to operationalise and validate the model.Simulation results show how combinations of behaviour profiles affect waste separation rates. Furthermore, findings show that single waste separation policies are often limitedly capable of changing the behaviour in the system. Rather, a combination of information and communication policies is needed to improve the separation of OFMSW, i.e., dissemination of a newsletter, providing personal feedback to the co-workers disposing of waste, and sharing information on the (improvement of) recycling rates.This study contributes to a better understanding of how policies can support co-workers’ pro-environmental behaviour for organic waste separation rates at SMEs. Thus, it shows policymakers how to stimulate the circular transition by actively engaging co-workers’ waste separation behaviour at SMEs. Future work will extend the model’s purpose by including households and policies supporting separating multiple waste types aimed at various R-strategies proposed by Potting et al. (2016).
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Adaptive survey design has attracted great interest in recent years, but the number of case studies describing actual implementation is still thin. Reasons for this may be the gap between survey methodology and data collection, practical complications in differentiating effort across sample units and lack of flexibility of survey case management systems. Currently, adaptive survey design is a standard option in redesigns of person and household surveys at Statistics Netherlands and it has been implemented for the Dutch Health survey in 2018. In this article, the implementation of static adaptive survey designs is described and motivated with a focus on practical feasibility.
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The purpose of this article is to explore innovative and adaptive ways of matching people with jobs in the context of a Dutch policy initiative aimed at the skills mismatch in the region of Amsterdam. This is an important and urgent issue because of the challenges of the future labor market, in which technological disruption and socio-economic forces affect the content and conditions of jobs and occupations. Powered by digital technology and data-driven approaches it is possible to design ‘?ne-grained’ matching systems based on skills or competences. The article combines an exploration of occupational taxonomies, skills frameworks and good practices of these skills-based applications with a theoretical discussion on the relevance and adaptations of Person-Environment Fit and matching theories. The article shows that these new forms of innovative, adaptive and ?uid matching have bene?ts for policy-makers, employers and jobseekers alike. In the discussion section some critical remarks are made on the matching theory and its application in contemporary instruments and tools. https://www.ojs.tnkul.pl/index.php/jpepsi/article/view/9624
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From the article : "Based on a review of recent literature, this paper addresses the question of how urban planners can steer urban environmental quality, given the fact that it ismultidimensional in character, is assessed largely in subjective terms and varies across time. A novel perspective of urban environmental quality is proposed, simultaneously exploring three questions that are at the core of planning and designing cities: ‘quality of what?’, ‘quality for whom?’ and ‘quality at what time?’. The dilemmas that urban planners face in answering these questions are illustrated using secondary material. This approach provides perspectives for action. Rather than further detailing the exact nature of urban quality, it calls for sustainable urban environmental quality planning that is integrated, participative and adaptive" ( wileyonlinelibrary.com ) DOI: 10.1002/eet.1759 - Preprint available for free download.
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from the article: Abstract Based on a review of recent literature, this paper addresses the question of how urban planners can steer urban environmental quality, given the fact that it is multidimensional in character, is assessed largely in subjective terms and varies across time. The paper explores three questions that are at the core of planning and designing cities: ‘quality of what?’, ‘quality for whom?’ and ‘quality at what time?’ and illustrates the dilemmas that urban planners face in answering these questions. The three questions provide a novel framework that offers urban planners perspectives for action in finding their way out of the dilemmas identified. Rather than further detailing the exact nature of urban quality, these perspectives call for an approach to urban planning that is integrated, participative and adaptive. ; ; sustainable urban development; trade-offs; quality dimensions
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With the increase of needs for controlling the passengers that use different modes of transport such as airports, ports, trains, or future ones as hyper loops, security facilities are a key element to be optimized. In the current study, we present an analysis of a security area within an airport with particular restrictions. To improve the capacity, different categories and policies were devised for processing passengers and we propose to adapt the system to these categories and policies. The results indicated that, by designing a proper category in combination with novel technology, it is possible to increase the capacity to values of 2 digits (in terms of passengers/day). As a proof-of-concept, we use a case study of an area within an airport in Mexico based on data and layout of early 2019.
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his paper develops a new, broader, and more realistic lens to study (lacking) linkages between government policy and school practices. Drawing on recent work in organization theory, we advance notions on cluster of organization routines and the logic of complementarities underlying organizational change. This lens allows looking at how schools do (not) change a cluster of organization routines in response to multiple, simultaneous demands posed by government policies. Thirteen purposively selected Dutch secondary schools responding to three central government policies calling for concurrent change were analyzed, taking the schedule of a school as an exemplary case of a cluster of organization routines. Five distinct responses were distinguished, which can be sorted according to their impact on the whole organization. The study fnds that ten of the thirteen schools did not change anything in response to at least one of the three policies we studied. However, all schools changed their cluster of organization routines, which impacted the whole organization in response to at least one of the three government policies. Therefore, looking at combinations of responses and considering the impact of change on school organizations qualifes ideas about schools being resistant to policy or unwilling to change and improve.
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Current global trends show that different regions of the globe face an increased level of urbanization, and there is a swift aging process from the Western to the Eastern European countries. Romania is a typical country expecting to triple the percentage of the older population aged 65 and over in the next 30 years. Urban policies often neglect such demographic perspectives. The World Health Organization launched the age-friendly city and communities' movement that proposes solutions for older people to age actively by improving their welfare and social participation. The concept of an age-friendly city comprised eight dimensions: (1) outdoor spaces and buildings; (2) transportation; (3) housing; (4) social participation; (5) respect and social inclusion; (6) civic participation and employment; (7) communication and information; and (8) community support and health services. It raises some important questions about how to measure and evaluate urban policies in this framework. Current work presents the process of adaptation and validation for the Romanian older population of a standardized tool - the Age-Friendly Cities and Communities Questionnaire (AFCCQ). The validation study was conducted in Bucharest (n = 424) on a representative sample of older people, who were asked to rate their life in the city, following the eight dimensions and an additional one regarding their financial situation. Four clusters were differentiated in the analysis, resulting in different views of older adults on their experience of living in the city, showing that people's socio-economic status, their living arrangements and health situation play a role in shaping their views on city life. The results highlight the importance of standardized tools to design urban policies following an age-friendly agenda.
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