Print Email Facebook Twitter Dynamic Adaptive Development Pathways Title Dynamic Adaptive Development Pathways: A participatory planning approach to support sustainable development under uncertain future conditions Author Rietdijk, Evelien (TU Delft Civil Engineering and Geosciences; TU Delft Water Management) Contributor van der Zaag, Pieter (mentor) Kwakkel, Jan (mentor) Timmermans, Jos (mentor) Duker, Annelieke (mentor) Degree granting institution Delft University of Technology Project A4Labs Date 2018-08-19 Abstract Rural communities in drylands of low-income countries represent highly vulnerable societies that areoften strongly affected by the increased climate variability (UNDP, 2007/2008). Additionally to climaticuncertainty, local households have also to cope with strongly fluctuating political and economicconditions, which are difficult to predict and impede regional development. Current planning practicesthat aim to address these uncertainties are often model based top-down focused approaches that lack anappropriate inclusion of local stakeholders. Crucial next steps are the downscaling of models to increasetheir local applicability and the incorporation of the knowledge and preferences of practitioners toachieve a sustainable landscape management plan. In this thesis, I developed a participatory planningapproach to support sustainable development under uncertain future conditions and applied it to a casestudy in the southern drylands of Zimbabwe.The newly developed planning approach is based on a synthesis of current good practices in developmentaid and recent advancements of research in predictive planning and management. Specifically, thedynamic adaptive policy pathways (Haasnoot et al., 2013) are merged with the landscape approach (Sayeret al., 2013), which accounts for sustainable development in a participatory manner, and transformed intoa new dynamic adaptive development pathways approach.The dynamic adaptive development pathways approach was applied to plan the upscaling of irrigationpractices using an alluvial aquifer in Zimbabwe. A critical step was the use of visualisation sessions andfocus group discussions to define the landscape area and local values, as well as to assemble a set ofpromising development actions. I then assessed the collected information using value matrixes and ahydrological model, to design different pathways for sustainable development.The creation of naturally, socially and ecologically sustainable pathways in a participatory manner for thiscase study proved possible and may function as a seed for sustainable development in the area. Whileuptake and application of the approach by local stakeholders still needs to be assessed, the adaptivecapacity seems a valuable addition for development planning under uncertain future conditions. Subject Uncertain futuresLandscape ApproachPathwaysSustainabilityDevelopment To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:00e042fe-93da-40d4-aae0-526a09ea2778 Part of collection Student theses Document type master thesis Rights © 2018 Evelien Rietdijk Files PDF Thesis_Evelien_Rietdijk_W ... UDelft.pdf 6.25 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:00e042fe-93da-40d4-aae0-526a09ea2778/datastream/OBJ/view