Spatial Planning for Urban Spatial Spatial Planning Resilience in the F for Urban ace of the Flood Risk Resilience in the Face of | Meng the Flood Risk Institutional Actions, Opport unities and Challenges Meng Meng Spatial Planning for Urban Resilience in the Face of the Flood Risk Institutional Actions, Opportunities and Challenges Meng Meng TOC A+BE | Architecture and the Built Environment | TU Delft BK 21#03 Design | Sirene Ontwerpers, Véro Crickx ISBN 978-94-6366-386-1 ISSN 2212-3202 © 2021 Meng Meng This dissertation is open access at https://doi.org/10.7480/abe.2021.03 Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) This is a human-readable summary of (and not a substitute for) the license that you'll find at: https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ You are free to: Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially. This license is acceptable for Free Cultural Works. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms. Under the following terms: Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use. Unless otherwise specified, all the photographs in this thesis were taken by the author. For the use of illustrations effort has been made to ask permission for the legal owners as far as possible. We apologize for those cases in which we did not succeed. These legal owners are kindly requested to contact the author. TOC Spatial Planning for Urban Resilience in the Face of the Flood Risk Institutional Actions, ­Opportunities­and­Challenges Dissertation for the purpose of obtaining the degree of doctor at Delft University of Technology by the authority of the Rector Magnificus, prof.dr.ir. T.H.J.J. van der Hagen chair of the Board for Doctorates to be defended publicly on Monday, 8 March 2021 at 10:00 o’clock by Meng MENG Master of Engineering in Landscape Architecture Southeast University, China born in Anhui, China TOC This dissertation has been approved by the promotors. Composition of the doctoral committee: Rector Magnificus, chairperson Prof. V. Nadin, Delft University of Technology, promotor Dr. D. Stead, Delft University of Technology, promotor Dr. M.M. Dąbrowski, Delft University of Technology, co-promotor Independent members: Prof. dr. E.M. van Bueren, Delft University of Technology Prof. dr. ir. C. Zevenbergen, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education Dr. L. Yu, Cardiff University Prof. dr. W.M. de Jong Erasmus University This study was financed by the China Scholarship Council and my family. TOC To my family TOC TOC Preface In my undergraduate studies, I was trained as an innovative landscape designer with an interdisciplinary education in landscape design, urban planning and architecture. My continuous study in postgraduate education followed this route until I came across a water-sensitive planning project in which the innovative design process retreated from the scientific hydrologic analysis and the synergy between safety, land use and economic prosperity. It drew my interest to flood resilience and the underlying mechanisms and factors affecting design processes in relation to this topic. Since 2015, I have developed a series of studies in China through the lens of policy science and institutional science. My findings support practices of planning and water management systems (groups of people) in working on the flood agenda and the improvement of these two systems. I have found that they come under the influence of standardised and traditional processes on account of institutional inertia, knowledge borrowing, policy framing, co-governance procedure, the organisational setting, financial allocation and collective understanding. The exploration of policy science and institutional science aspects of planning systems is a welcome topic in the field of spatial/urban planning studies, but it is subject to resistance from others. In the planning education systems in the UK, US and Netherlands, the attention to policy research and institutional research is well established. However, not all places pay sufficient attention to this field. For many practitioners, planning is still dominantly regarded as a physical design process or tool. This divergence is interesting and inspires the starting point of my PhD story. My PhD is an endeavour to show that the planning process can benefit from social science-based studies. It is the journey of a 24/7 five-year struggle to show that planning is a governance approach, and that urban planners and designers cannot escape the influences of policies, regulations, legal rules, resource allocation, and institutional inertia. A better understanding of these under-estimated influences can help spatial planners, designers, strategists and also policymakers understand the dynamics and transformations of cities and regions better. They will be well prepared to touch the topics and fields in planning practice that are beyond their expertise. Debates can be expected. The research in this thesis relies on a series of qualitative methods which is necessary to understand the motivations of many actors. In addition, the promotion of flood resilience in the domain of spatial planning TOC necessitates the integration of land use planning, environmental analytics, socio- economic calculation and institutional science, rather than a narrow concentration on one aspect. This contention of the need for multiple approaches applies also in other environment-related topics in planning research and practice such as health, pollution and drought. In my view, the lack of one or more of these aspects is often a serious gap in planning education. It is for all young researchers to make their contribution in the future. TOC Acknowledgements Although I am a researcher focusing on urban resilience (reacting to external shocks), I never expected my last stages of PhD would be hit by coronavirus, lock- down and quarantine. They have caused a lot of troubles for me, for instance, delays in preparing for my final defence and searching for jobs in the market. Fortunately, I have completed with the support of my family, teachers, colleagues and friends. I know in my heart that I could not achieve my standing without you all. This work is dedicated to my beloved father for his emphasis on learning, writing and pursuing high educational achievements in the past 32 years. He is a strong but shy man who doesn’t say too much to me. We did not talk too much; neither do we now. But I can feel his deep love and care with his texted messages and telephone calls, especially during my PhD study abroad, when he cannot get in touch with me easily. This work is dedicated to my beloved mother, for her unconditional love, for all her sacrifices, for all courage that she gave to me, for all her acknowledgements of my achievements from the very first day of my life, for her unconditional faith in me whenever I failed, for 32 years of support allowing me to do what I love. I am grateful to be funded by the China Scholarship Council and my family. I could not have completed my doctoral research without their financial support. I thank all the teachers and colleagues in the Netherlands and China, without whom I would never manage to complete this dissertation. To beloved Marcin Dąbrowski. You are the person who would like to give me unconditional belief and support at any time, no matter I am stuck in my research or depressed by job hunting. To my supervisors Vincent Nadin and Dominic Stead. Both of you spent a lot of efforts on my study, work and job hunting. Without your help, I would not make such fruitful progress. I can still remember that five years ago when I received an interview from both of you from the other side of the earth. You gave me the opportunity to be here in Delft and use your resources to support my exploration. To Fransje Hooimeijer, Lei Qu, Rodrigo Cardoso, Akkelies van Nes, Bardia Mashhoodi, Gregory Bracken, Han Meyer, Jianyun Zhou, Dongjin Qi, Jing Wang, Hebe (Jinghuan He), Feng Yu, Faith Chain, Daniele Cannatella, Yuka Yoshida, Rachel Keeton, Yuting Tai, Jiaxiu Cai, Liang Xiong, Luiz de Carvalho Filho, and colleagues who have helped and supported me in TOC the last five years. To secretaries Margo van der Helm, Daniëlle Hellendoorn, Chiara Termini and Karin Visser who have assisted my work in the Department of Urbanism. Doing fieldwork in Guangzhou was heavy work. I am grateful to all of the interviewees, colleagues and friends who helped me with data collection. My sincere gratitude goes to Lequn Cheng (House and Urban-rural Construction Commission), Xi Teng (Guangzhou Urban Planning Design & Survey Research Institute), Binbin Wang (Urban Planning Research Centre, Nansha), Guangsi Lin (South China University of Technology), Juanyu Wu (South China University of Technology), Xiaomei Pang (South China University of Technology), and other interviewees that are not mentioned here because of secrecy. Hearty thanks are given to my lovely friends with whom I go through the tough experience in PhD study. To Cinco Yu, you are the person who discusses with me about Taiwan’s history and shares with me your open-minded attitude to career and life. Many thanks to Juan Yan, Mei Liu, Riming Wang, Hao Yu, Yunlong Guo, Langzi Chang, Biyue Wang, Haiyan Lu, Sitong Luo, Li Lv, Taozhi Zhuang, Wenting Ma, Wei Dai, Ding Yang, Wang Pan, Xiao Guo, Dan Cheng, Weixiao Gao, Hai Gong, Jinjin, Xin Du, Xun Sun, Shuai Guo, Shile Zhou, Yingying Gan, together with me doing their PhDs in the Netherlands.