The effectiveness of flood-risk management in The Netherlands depends on effective stakeholder coordination through governance arrangements developed over many years of coping with floods. In this research project, we will repeat this process on a shortened time scale, and aim to develop coordinating capabilities in flood-risk management for the urban poor in a developing country. We will initiate and support community-based innovation, development, production, and implementation of small-scale technical innovations that alleviate immediate flood-related nuisance (wet feet) in a town in Bangladesh, with the aim to increase coordinating capacity for flood risk management and focus this emerging governance capacity on developing ever longer term, severer risks, increasing scale and more sustainable solution for flood risk management. Our research in this Learning Space addresses a major knowledge gap on how community based flood mitigation and adaptation measures both technological and institutional develop into measures of scale. This will enhance flood resiliency through demonstration and subsequent development of knowledge co-creation in collaboration with local partners and ultimately integration in flood management policies.

The Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) delta faces rapid, unplanned urbanization driven by rural-urban migration and informal governance. This increases vulnerability to hydro-climatic hazards and socio-ecological challenges, especially in peri-urban zones. Peri-urban livelihoods suffer due to multi-hazard exposure, unstable employment, inadequate infrastructure, limited access to services, and lack of just governance. Using Living Labs in a systems dynamics approach, FLASH addresses the broader scientific question of how to create sustainable, climate-resilient livelihood options for peri-urban populations in Bangladesh’s delta region. The interrelated outcomes offer sustainable and climate-resilient peri-urban livelihood options in the GBM delta, aligning with the Bangladesh Delta Plan 2100.

The research is about strategizing water and sediment management in the coastal social and ecological system (SES) to foster sustainable delta landscape and resilient delta community. We have formulated our main research question to answer in this multidisciplinary research project: How can we identify and prioritize water and sediment management (WSM) interventions that are robust and flexible across multiple scales and sectors, maximizing multi-sectoral synergistic benefits while minimizing trade-offs, to support the resilience of diverse communities through equitably reducing risk and fostering climate-resilient development?

As full flood protection is neither sustainable nor possible it is crucial to reduce the impact of floods on people and economies in both poor and rich countries through the development of appropriate strategies to reduce flood exposure and vulnerability. This research programme will assess and compare the strategies and policies of governments, professionals and communities to reduce flood risk and vulnerability in the Bangladeshi and Dutch Deltas, to contribute to poverty reduction through the strengthening of institutional and community capacities to manage moderate floods and increase resilience to extreme floods. The research will examine how different communities develop, adopt, implement and modify flood risk management policies in the two deltas, and will enhance mutual learning between Bangladesh and the Netherlands. This will yield new frameworks and tools that will give insights into levels of vulnerability and resilience to flooding and how to reduce flood risk-exposure. Underlying the research is a practical interest to explore a range of ?no-regret? responses to managing flood risk in urban and rural contexts that increase flexibility, adaptability and sustainability and contribute to poverty reduction. The research will focus on different types of floods, namely river floods, rainfall floods, floods caused by cyclonic storm surges and flooding of agricultural land due to drainage congestion (slow flooding). In Bangladesh two areas have been chosen for research after stakeholder consultations: Dhaka City for research on urban flooding resilience and the Southwest Delta for research on rural flooding resilience. The programme will consist of 4 PhD projects that will analyze the strategies and policies of rural, urban, epistemic and policy communities to reduce flood risks and vulnerabilities. PhD1 will focus on delta knowledge agendas in the Netherlands and Bangladesh, PhD2 on urban flooding in Bangladesh, PhD3 on rural flooding in Bangladesh and PhD4 on the integration of climate change adaptation strategies and disaster risk reduction initiatives with a focus on floods in the two deltas. A fifth research project carried out by the senior researchers will analyze the existing science-policy-stakeholder interfaces in flood risk management in the two deltas and through stakeholder workshops and networking will encourage the uptake of the research findings in practice, thus contributing to achieving the developmental goals of the programme.

Hundreds of thousand people living in the vulnerable coastal zone of the GBM delta are exposed to high salinity in water and soil and suffer from fresh water scarcity for different uses. Various saline water management tools and techniques have been applied and failed to provide sustainable solutions for improving their livelihood. We propose to learn from the past failures by way of closely interacting with the communities and stakeholders and come out with innovative solutions. We shall work and learn together with communities and implementors for co-designing, testing and showcasing sustainable salinity management technologies in the Living Lab.