Building with Nature & Beyond

Front matter

Jill Slinger Building with Nature & Beyond

Building with Nature & Beyond Principles for Designing Nature Based Engineering Solutions Jill Slinger (Principal Author and Editor) with contributions of others

Editorial Team About Jill Slinger The primary author and editor, Prof. Jill Slinger is a Building with Nature specialist at Delft University of Technology where she holds an Associate Professorship in the Policy Analysis section of the Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management. She is also Visiting Professor at the Institute for Water Research at Rhodes University in South Africa. Her research in water and coastal management utilises both qualitative and quantitative methods to advance stakeholder-inclusive, model-based decision mak - ing and co-design. She teaches post-graduate courses in Policy Analysis in Multi-Actor Systems, Building with Nature, and Ad - vanced System Dynamics Modelling.

Preface

Welcome to Building with Nature and Beyond! Building with Nature is a comprehensive engineering approach that seeks to enhance the use of natural ecological processes to achieve sustainable hydraulic infrastructural designs. It rests on the seminal work of Waterman (2008) who describes the approach as striving for “a flexible integration of land in water and water in land using interactions and materials present in nature”. Accordingly, this book explores the interface between hydraulic engineering, nature and society, focusing on the use of natural materials and ecological processes in achieving effective and sustainable hydraulic infrastructural designs with, and for, society. The first part of the book familiarises the reader with the Building with Nature ecosystem-based design concept and its applications in water and coastal systems. You will explore the use of natural materials and ecological processes in achieving effective and sustainable hydraulic infrastructure designs, applying the Engineer - ing and Ecological Design Principles distilled in this course to a number of case studies. However, if you are a practicing coastal engineer, ecologist or planner, you already know that engineering and ecological principles are not enough to realise nature-friendly solutions in practice. You need people on your side! The missing element of Social Design Principles is taught in the second part of the book. Here, you will learn how to build a relevant coalition of stakeholders to support the design and implementation of ecosystem-based hydraulic infrastructures.

After learning basic stakeholder mapping and game theory techniques, and receiv - ing instruction in stakeholder-inclusive social design principles, you will apply the Social Design Principles to a Building with Nature ecosystem-based design case. This will equip you to identify promising collaborative arrangements for your future engineering, environmental science or planning practice. What you will learn The goal is that you will learn the Engineering (H), Ecological (E) and Social (S) Design Principles, the S-H-E Principles, be able to explain why they are important, and learn how to apply them in practice on a number of case studies. We will not address whether hydraulic infrastructure should be built or not, nor will we deal with assessing the impact of infrastructure on the natural and social environments. Similarly, we will not evaluate the goods and services deriving to humans from ecosystems. Instead, we will focus on the conceptual challenge of stakeholder-inclusive, integrated design of ecosystem friendly hydraulic infrastructures. In essence, you will learn: Introduction • Basic engineering design principles, ecological principles, and social design principles relevant to the Building with Nature approach • To assess which principles are applied in several case studies and so form your own opinion on whether the hy - draulic infrastructure is meeting engineering, ecosystem and societal goals • To apply your new knowledge in the integrated design of potential Building with Nature solutions • To identify and analyse the power and interests of stake - holders relevant for the design and implementation of na - ture friendly hydraulic infrastructure. • To apply basic game theory in combination with stakeholder analysis to determine potential coalitions in a Building with Nature project case. • To evaluate the suitability of coalitions for designing and implementing a particular Building with Nature project case. In summary, this book seeks to teach comprehensive, stake - holder-inclusive and nature friendly engineering design in water, coastal and delta systems. It embodies the claim of Slinger and Vreugdenhil (2020) that a metamorphosis in hydraulic engineering is underway, as engineers seek to design and build nature friendly infrastructure with, and for, society. Through the educa - tional material in this book, you are invited to join a new gener - ation of engineers, ecologists, planners and environmental and social scientists actively applying Building with Nature principles. You will learn that Building with Nature requires building with people. It is not necessarily about getting others to share your viewpoint or designing the optimal solution, but about creating a multidisciplinary design space in which a diversity of viewpoints and knowledge sources are welcomed. This will pave the way for creating new types of nature based solutions.

Book structure The book is divided into two parts, as depicted in the learning path in the figure below. The first part deals with the interface between engineering and ecology in designing nature friend - ly hydraulic infrastructures, while the second part of the book teaches stakeholder-inclusive and context sensitive approaches to Building with Nature. A more detailed guide to the structure of the book is provided per chapter hereafter. PART 1 - Engineering: Building with Nature Chapter 1: Introduction to Building with Nature The Building with Nature concept and its importance are intro - duced through a number of dramatic examples. Hydraulic en - gineering infrastructures are identified, and readers explore di - verse standpoints on the ecological effects of interventions in the natural world.

Chapter 2: Engineering design principles The engineering design process is explained and the underlying principles are distilled. Readers familiarise themselves with the material through classification exercises. Chapter 3: Ecological design principles The concept of designing in accordance with ecological princi - ples is explained. Readers identify different types of aquatic ecosystems and distil principles on the basis of ecosystem character and functioning.

Chapter 4: Integrated design Readers apply their new knowledge in designing potential inte - grated Building with Nature solutions in pre-prepared case studies, or in their locality. Trade-offs in applying engineering and ecological principles are explicated, and the opportunities for nature are clarified.

Chapter 5: Integrated design review A critical evaluation of whether hydraulic infrastructure is fit for purpose in meeting engineering, ecological and societal goals is undertaken through a self-review of the case study undertak - en in Chapter 4. In particular, students assess the coherence between the infrastructure design and the ecosystem character and function using the hydraulic Engineering (H) and Ecological (E) Design Principles. Material on all pre-prepared case studies is provided.

Chapter 10 Towards Coalition Building Chapter 1 Building with Nature: An Issue of Trade-Offs Chapter 2 Engineering Design Principles Chapter 3 Ecological Design Principles Chapter 4 Integrated BwN Design Chapter 5 Assessing BwN Designs Chapter 9 Social Design Principles Chapter 8 Cooperative Game Theory Chapter 7 Stakeholder Analysis and Mapping Chapter 6 Why Consider the Social Context?