The Case of the Grensmaas, Limburg Do Changed Landscapes and a New
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Master thesis Local ecological knowledge and self-reliance: GRENSthe case of the Grensmaas, Limburg MAASDo changed landscapes and a new flood risk perception lead to increased vulnerability? Vince van ‘t Hoff Supervisor: Andries Richter Author: Vince van ‘t Hoff Student number: 941218348070 Course code: ENR-80436 GRENSLocal ecological knowledge and self-reliance: the case of the Grensmaas, Limburg Do changed landscapes and a new flood risk perception lead to increased vulnerability? MAAS Master of Environmental Sciences Thesis track: Environmental Economics Supervisor: Andries Richter Summary This thesis researches the largest river project in the Netherlands, the Grensmaas project. The Grensmaas project is developed based on the principles of a new river management paradigm in which the river has been given more room for natural dynamics. The project has three aims; flood risk reduction, nature restoration and gravel extraction. Through extracting gravel, the project creates more space for the river to flood and for new forms of nature to develop. Taking ecological restoration and increased resilience as a starting point, benefits spill over into social and economic domains, linking social-ecological interactions. Therefore, this project is a practical implementation of a Nature-based Solution. However, there is limited GRENS understanding of the social-ecological interactions of Nature-based Solutions and this thesis looks at these social-ecological interactions. The Grensmaas project has drastically altered the landscape and inhabitants used to deal with flooding events by themselves based on local ecological knowledge and responding to changing in river flow. As the project has altered the landscape, it might be that inhabitants cannot read their environment anymore which ham- pers an effective response in case of potential flooding events. In addition, there are worries that official measures decrease preventative measure taking of communities in the area. Before the project, flooding events were seen as part of daily lives and inhabitants were self-reliant and dependent on their own communities in case of flooding events. Because the project has officially decreased the likelihood of flooding events, it could be that inhabitants have a decreased flood risk perception and therefore take less private preventative measures despite the fact that private preventative measures are important for minimizing damage from flooding events. Therefore, this thesis researches ‘to what extent altered forms of local ecological knowledge and a changed risk perception as a result of the Grensmaas project lead to increased vulnerability for inhabitants in the Grensmaas area’. Through an online survey, this research assesses the altered conditions of local ecological knowledge and its influences on vulnerability. In addition, it assesses the current flood risk perception and the attitudes towards taking measures. The results from this thesis show that local ecological knowledge is still largely present and that therefore most inhabitants have not become more vulnerable. In addition, this thesis shows that risk perception is low and that personal measures are also limited. This means that the susceptibility to flooding events has increased and that damage is not minimized although overall vulnerability has decreased because of the project. The recommendations given focus on integrating local ecological knowledge in flood prevention plans and incentivizing private flood prevention measures. Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to thank my supervisor, Andries Richter, for assisting me during the longest and most difficult project in my life so far. He has been of great help, both in terms of content and in terms of the process. In addition to this, I would like to thank those who are part of the larger Grensmaas Research Project of which this research is a part of. The project has allowed me to make use of some funding and provided me with contacts for starting my research. Furthermore, I would like to thank the Grensmaas Consortium for the provided information on the project, for laying first contact with some community groups and for their hospitality in showing me around in the Grensmaas. As a newbie to R, I am very thankful to Aleid Teeuwen and Amanda Schadeberg for helping me to understand the basics of R. Finally, I am thankful for the critical feedback of Carolijn Oudshoorn which helped me in my writing. Closing it off, I am satisfied with my accomplishments and I hope this thesis research provides the reader with interesting insights! Table of Contents 1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1. Water management in The Netherlands ..................................................................................... 1 1.2. The Grensmaas project as a nature-based solution .................................................................... 3 1.3. Problem statement ....................................................................................................................... 4 1.4. Relevance ...................................................................................................................................... 5 1.5. Research question ........................................................................................................................ 6 1.6. Sub-questions ............................................................................................................................... 6 1.7. Structure of the thesis .................................................................................................................. 7 2. Context of the Grensmaas river and the Grensmaas project .............................................................. 8 2.1. The Grensmaas River and its characteristics ............................................................................... 8 2.2. The Grensmaas River until the 1980s: A dull river ....................................................................... 8 2.3. Nature development and restoration of the river dynamics ....................................................... 9 2.4. The Grensmaas project and its aims ............................................................................................ 9 2.5. The flooding events of 1993 and 1995 ........................................................................................ 10 2.6. The foundations of the current Grensmaas project ................................................................... 11 3. Theoretical background ..................................................................................................................... 13 3.1. Resilience, vulnerability and adaptive capacity ......................................................................... 13 3.1.1. Social-ecological systems and resilience ........................................................................... 13 3.1.2. Vulnerability, susceptibility and adaptive capacity ........................................................... 14 3.2. Local ecological knowledge ....................................................................................................... 16 3.2.1. Definitions of local ecological knowledge and related concepts ...................................... 16 3.2.2. Local ecological knowledge and scientific knowledge ...................................................... 18 3.2.3. Renewed interest in local ecological knowledge ............................................................... 18 3.2.4. Local Flood Knowledge ...................................................................................................... 19 3.2.5. The loss of local ecological knowledge and local flood knowledge .................................. 20 3.2.6. Perseverance and novel forms of LEK................................................................................ 21 3.3. Flood risk perception and private measure taking .................................................................... 21 4. Materials and methods ....................................................................................................................... 23 4.1. Research design .......................................................................................................................... 23 4.1.1. The online survey ................................................................................................................ 23 4.2. Research areas ............................................................................................................................ 24 4.3. Data collection ............................................................................................................................ 26 4.4. Data analysis ............................................................................................................................... 27 4.4.1. Linking the theory, the concepts and the survey ............................................................... 27 4.4.2. Statistical models and econometric estimation ................................................................ 30 5. Results................................................................................................................................................. 37 5.1. Descriptive analysis .................................................................................................................... 37 5.1.1. Summary