Combining safety and nature: A multi-stakeholder perspective on integrated floodplain management

In The Netherlands, river management strategies and land use of floodplains have changed drastically over the last two decades. Due to an integrated and participatory planning style, many agricultural fields in floodplains were transformed to nature. The idea of self-regulating nature in the floodplains and policies such as Room for the River and WaalWeelde created more multifunctional and natural floodplains. In this way, during the planning phase, win-win situations were created between flood protection and nature. It was only later that obstacles occurred with regard to the maintenance of floodplains, mainly because of different perspectives of the stakeholders on how to reconcile flood protection and nature. Therefore this study focuses on the opinions of persons involved with 'future' floodplain management strategies, which have been divided into five themes: visions of floodplain management; collaborators in floodplain management; visions of nature and self-regulating nature; realization of Natura 2000 goals in floodplains; feasibility of the Cyclic Floodplain Rejuvenation (CFR) strategy. We interviewed various persons involved in river and nature management along the Waal River. Based on our findings, it is concluded that an integrated planning approach has not been incorporated into the maintenance strategies and programs and, as a result, new, innovative management strategies such as CFR are proving to be incompatible with 'static' regulations such as Natura 2000's conservation goals and flood protection norms. However, by exploring the responders' visions of nature, we found that the majority of them preferred a dynamic vision of floodplains and, for this reason, they have advocated for more flexibility in current policies related to river and nature management. Additionally, the respondents emphasized the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration to realize the goal of cost-efficient floodplain management. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.