KuiperCompagnons advises on flood protection and urban development Gdansk, Poland
Urban design company KuiperCompagnons and consultancy firm Arcadis are going to demonstrate the Dutch concept 'Room for the River' in the region of Gdansk, Poland.
Dutch specialists on water safety and spatial planning, together with the municipality, will prepare a strategy to make the City of Gdansk water resilient.
Flood safety and spatial development
For a one year period these specialists will intensively work together with several Polish public and private parties, to arrive at a strategy that proposes interventions that combine water safety with social, economic and environmental city development.
Several Polish cities have had flood problems during recent years. Often these are caused by heavy rain fall and limited possibilities to discharge the water.
Similar challenges in the Netherlands in the 1990s resulted in the start of the national flood risk reduction program Room for the River.
This program will be completed and finalized in 2015, and aims to simultaneously increase flood safety and give an impulse to local spatial developments and the economy.
Linking objectives
This integrated and holistic approach can also be of added value in Poland, and in other European countries. By innovatively linking a variety of objectives, a better result can be achieved. By doing so, the Dutch knowledge and expertise on water and urban planning & design can contribute to sustainable city development.
About Room for the river
The Dutch national river programme Room for the River accommodates higher water levels not by building higher levees but by moving back the levees and increase the rivers capacity to carry more water. Productive farmlands are being bought out and turned into floodplains, wetlands and side channels up and down the river, where high waters can now spread out instead of threatening to spill over the tops of dikes.
Room for the River is a concept that responses to climate change by restoring the natural functions of floodplains and wetlands.
This news item was originally published on the website of KuiperCompagnons.
More information
KuiperCompagnons
Rotterdam, the Netherlands
+31 10 433 00 99
www.kuiper.nl