Research project
Thirsty Cities: Towards drought resilient cities
Drought, exacerbated by climate change, is becoming a serious issue in Dutch cities. This affects the availability of water for people, nature, and infrastructure. The Thirsty Cities project is the first large-scale initiative to investigate this phenomenon, involving dozens of knowledge partners and authorities. Together, they are working on solutions to make cities more resilient to drought.
- Contact
- Sofia Fernandes Gomes
- Funding
-
Dutch Research Agenda (NWA)
- Partners
Knowledge institutions: Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences (lead), Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Saxion University of Applied Sciences, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Delft University of Technology, University of Twente, Leiden University
Water boards and district water boards: De Dommel Water Board, Delfland Water Authority, Schieland and Krimpenerwaard Regional Water Authority, De Stichtse Rijnlanden Regional Water Authority
Municipalities: Rotterdam, Eindhoven, Utrecht, Amsterdam, Nijmegen, Enschede, Groningen, Deventer
Other partners: Deltares, Naturalis Biodiversity Center, STOWA (Foundation for Applied Water Research), RIONED Foundation, Samen Klimaatbestendig and Treeport BCT Partners BV.
Recurring droughts severely impacted the Dutch built Environment, causing financial, environmental, and social effects. Climate change and urban developments are expected to aggravate this. Although municipalities recognize drought as critical risk, few have prepared for it. This is due to a lack of understanding of the urban water balance under drought and the vulnerability of urban water use(r)s, ambiguity in role and responsibility, and missing action-perspectives. Thirsty Cities aims to address this by developing, collecting, connecting and delivering in a transdisciplinary approach the needed knowledge, insights, tooling, principles, designs, infrastructures and action-perspectives for a climate-proof, drought-resilient, and water-sensitive built environment.