Overseen drought problems in Bergen op Zoom
The experienced effects and impacts of droughts on the municipalityOverseen drought problems in Bergen op Zoom
The experienced effects and impacts of droughts on the municipalitySamenvatting
The municipality of Bergen op Zoom is assuming to overlook climate change problems and possibilities. They are missing knowledge on how to deal with a dry period. This is the reason of the requested for a research on the drought problematic. They want to know how different departments and inhabitants experienced the dry period. Moreover, they want to know where the effects are experienced and what causes the effects in order to undertake measures to minimize the effects. The objective of the research is to define a view of the overseen problems and possibilities related to drought. It does so by offering insight in the problems by providing an overview of which stakeholders experienced what effects and how they handle with each effect. Moreover, the causes of the effects will be researched to get to know where the problem is coming from to handle in an effective way. This objective leads to the research question: What are the drought effects on the urban area of the municipality of Bergen op Zoom, in order to undertake measures to deal with the effects in the nearby future? To give an answer on the research question different methods were needed; literature research, stakeholder analysis, interviews, focus group (interview with more people at the same time), surveys and mapping. Literature research was needed to provide knowledge about the topic, research for the causes of the effects and to know which measures available are to handle the effects. For carrying out the interviews and the focus group, people were selected in the stakeholder analysis. The stakeholders need to be involved with climate effects, need to have a stake in the research problem, are target audience related to the assignment, have the means to change something related to the problem and have a stake in the urban area. With these stakeholders semi-structured open-questions interviews and a focus group were done. Five districts (Lepelstraat, De Schans, Noordgeest, Centrum & Bergse Plaat) were chosen for the 150 open and closed questions in the surveys. The districts were chosen on areas were civil servants experienced effects (result of the interviews), where they did not experience effects, villages, houses built after 1985 and houses built before 1985. The results of the interviews, focus group and surveys were mapped to give an overview of the locations. In the answers of the methods turns out that blue algae, low water level in ponds, damage to public green and the shoot up effect of tiles are the most effects experienced by stakeholders. While the most mentioned attention points are; better communication, implementing more green and citizen participation. The most experienced effects by inhabitants were low water level in ponds and damage to public green. Most of the causes of the effects happened because of the moving dry sand in the underground layer. This lead to measures which focussed on buffering water in an earlier stage and let it infiltrate in the underground to bring back the sponge capacity. Furthermore, bottom-up and diagonal communication can be used in the municipality as they also can focus more on citizen participation. On the answers of the methods, is suggested to carry out a follow-up research for the rural area, surveys for the other districts, providing a better underground soil map and to know more about the relation of costs, effects and damage of droughts via the ‘CELCIUS’ tool of Sweco. Moreover, it is recommended to communicate better and to choose a responsible person to coordinate during a dry period. This person should coordinate between the different departments and make the inhabitants aware. In addition, the departments should cooperate by designing new developments and create more awareness of climate adaptation among the stakeholders of the municipality.
Organisatie | HZ University of Applied Sciences |
Opleiding | Watermanagement/ Deltamanagement |
Afdeling | Domein Technology, Water & Environment |
Partner | Sweco Nederland B.V., Middelburg |
Datum | 2019-07-02 |
Type | Bachelor |
Taal | Engels |