The Netherlands has a lot of data about climate risks. Researchers can identify where flooding is likely to occur, where heat accumulates in cities and which areas are vulnerable to storms. Governments, investors, developers and residents can use this information when making decisions about the future of areas and buildings. But what do these risks actually mean in practice for investments?
That question runs through the work of the Red&Blue research program, of which AMS Institute is one of the core scientific partners. Maged Elsamny, researcher and living lab coordinator at AMS Institute and TU Delft, is bringing the project's partners together to co-create knowledge and actions on climate risk in the Netherlands and de-risk the city of Amsterdam from climate hazards. He does this by working collaboratively with stakeholders to ensure integration among businesses, knowledge institutions, and the government.
In the program, researchers and professionals collaborate on climate resilience in the built environment. Some research entails understanding risks themselves. In this article, Elsamny explains how research focuses on what happens once risks are identified, on how climate risks are assessed, or what the consequences are of doing nothing.
From hazard to damage
The Climate Damage Calculator (CDC) was developed to answer some of those questions. The tool translates flood risks into estimated financial impacts at the individual building level. It was developed by Elsamny, and TU Delft researcher Simona Bianchi, supported by the AMS Prototyping Team and two assistant researchers from AMS Institute and TU Delft. The tool has been tested on property owned by Bouwinvest in Amsterdam.
“Risk is composed of vulnerability, hazard and exposure,” said Elsamny. “A lot of climate information stops at the hazard-level of the risk. So, the identification where flooding may occur. But that does not tell you what the consequences are for a building owner, housing corporation, municipality or resident. The question we wanted to answer in our research was: how do we translate the climate risk of flooding into financial impact on the building level, instead of on the national or city level?”
In order to do so, the CDC combines publicly available climate hazard data with information about buildings.
“The CDC is open source and publicly available, which is unusual in this field. By making the methodology transparent, we hope to create a shared understanding of climate risk. When people share a common view of the problem, it becomes easier to agree on adaptation measures and investment priorities,” he said.
“Climate adaptation is often discussed in terms of risk, but decisions are usually made in terms of investments. If users of the calculator understand the potential costs of future damage, they are in a better position to decide whether to invest in a building or to take climate adaptation measures to reduce future costs. A flood map tells you where water might go. The calculator helps answer what that means financially.”
High water levels in Dordrecht, one of the flood-prone areas the Red&Blue project focuses on, along with Watergrafsmeer in Amsterdam. Credits: Richard de Bruijn.
Interpreting climate risk
The Climate Damage Calculator builds on another line of research led by Elsamny. Within Red&Blue, he examined how Dutch real estate organisations use Climate Risk Assessment (CRA) tools to evaluate physical climate risks.
“Multiple tools can produce different results for the same location,” said Elsamny. “International platforms are useful for comparing portfolios and meeting reporting requirements, while national tools are often better equipped to account for local conditions such as flood defenses, water management systems and planned adaptation measures.”
Climate risk assessment is therefore rarely a matter of accepting a model's output. Organizations should interpret different sources of information and decide which are relevant for a particular decision. Bouwinvest used Elsamny’s research to inform the redesign of its own climate risk assessment approach for its building portfolio. This directly influences their investment decisions.
Together, the CRA research and the Climate Damage Calculator point to the same challenge: generating climate information is not the main bottleneck. The challenge remains in what to do with the generated information.
More than numbers
Research within Red&Blue shows that climate adaptation cannot be reduced to risk calculations alone. Decisions about resilience are also shaped by questions of responsibility, affordability, governance, and inclusion.
These questions matter because climate impacts are not experienced equally. Lower-income households and other vulnerable groups often have fewer resources to adapt to climate risks such as heat. Investments that increase climate resilience can also create new tensions, for example, when the investments raise housing prices. Through workshops, stakeholder dialogs, and community engagement activities, Red&Blue researchers have explored how different actors perceive climate risks, negotiate trade-offs and define responsibilities.
Beyond just information
All research within Red&Blue addresses different dimensions of the same problem: how do we make our built environment more climate resilient? Elsamny’s research shows us that information about climate risk can help different groups make more informed decisions about investments and climate adaptation measures. It breaks the lock-in of the current way of thinking about urban developments and brings us closer to climate-aware investments and, in turn, future-proof cities.
Maged Elsamny, researcher and living lab coordinator at AMS Institute and TU Delft. Credits: Vincent Basler
| Read more about the research into CRA tools in this report: |