Spatial Quality as a decisive criterion in flood risk strategies: An integrated approach for flood risk management strategy development, with spatial quality as an ex-ante criterion

The role of the designer in flood risk management strategy development is currently often restricted to the important but limited task of optimally embedding technical interventions, which are themselves derivatives of system level flood risk strategies that are developed at an earlier stage, in their local surroundings. During this thesis research, an integrated approach is developed in which spatial quality can already be included in the regional flood risk management strategy development, and thus can become a decisive ‘ex-ante’ aspect of flood risk management strategy development.

The key principle to this approach is the inclusion of a range of interchangeable (effective) flood risk reduction interventions at varying locations, so that the criterion of spatial quality can become decisive in flood risk management strategy development. As part of the methodology development, an assessment framework is developed, allowing for the assessment of the impact of the different interventions on spatial quality; research-by-design is employed to systematically evaluate different interventions at different locations. The Rijnmond-Drechtsteden area in The Netherlands is used as a case study area for this research.