On 22 May 2012, Mr. Berry Gersonius successfully presented and defended his PhD thesis and was awarded with a Doctoral degree. Professor Chris Zevenbergen and professor Richard Ashley were his promoters. The PhD research focused on ‘The resilience approach to climate adaptation applied for flood risk'.
About the research
The uncertainties associated with making investment decisions for flood risk management can be significant and arise from, amongst other factors, a lack of knowledge about external drivers, like climate change.
These uncertainties make it necessary to succeed the (quasi-)stationarity approach for the development of investment strategies. Otherwise, such strategies can be maladaptive, resulting in e.g. unnecessary costs of potentially irreversible measures.
The dissertation presents a potential way forward for adaptation to climate change, termed the resilience approach. The resilience approach takes a dynamic perspective on adaptive processes and the effects of these processes at/across different spatio-temporal scales.
The methods required for applying the resilience approach should give insight into and promote the ability of a system to deal with future change. This comprises the ability not only to respond to change as a threat, but also to take advantage of opportunities that arise from future change.
Case study experience is provided with four methods: Adaptive Policy Making, Real-In-Options, Adaptation Tipping Points and - Adaptation Mainstreaming Opportunities.
The dissertation discusses the concept, procedure and benefits/limitations of each method, examining its usefulness for informing investment decisions for flood risk management. It gives specific recommendations on which method to use under what circumstances.
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UNESCO-IHE PhD Dissertations
Full text versions of most of the UNESCO-IHE PhD Dissertations are available through NARCIS. NARCIS provides access to 163,228 full-text publications and research output from all Dutch universities, KNAW, NWO and a number of scientific institutes. This dissertation will be added here shortly.
