Adaptation pathways for fluvial landscapes: A case study of flood and drought management with consideration of transboundary governance complexity in the Geul catchment

The 2021 European Floods caused severe damage in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Luxembourg. It is expected that such extremes will occur more frequently in the future. Therefore, it is important to adapt to such events, as well as other challenges related to climate change such as drought and increased evaporation. Measures to increase resilience might be the retention or storage of water upstream but might also be the increase of discharge capacity downstream. It can also include measures aimed at increasing resilience and reducing risks, such as wet-proofing or early warning systems. It becomes apparent that some of the measures are more easily applicable than others. This can be attributed to the large spatial scale they require, and/or the number of actors involved. With regard to this complexity, this thesis aims to investigate feasible adaptation pathways in the Geul and their wider applicability in the Meuse River basin.

The final report can be downloaded here.