LAVA – Landscapes and Water as a Driver of Adaptive Planning

Based in the concept of ‘catchment neighbourhoods’ – whose common framework is water – LAVA is going to examine how we can mitigate the uncertainties resulting from climate change over time.

LAVA – Landscapes and Water as a Driver of Adaptive Planning is a research project that examines the pressing challenges for our urban and rural areas that result from climate change in depth. Global climate change will have serious consequences in the form of sea level rise, more frequent flooding events, rising groundwater levels, and increased precipitation. This is the backdrop for our urgent need for new knowledge and new approaches to urban and landscape planning capable of handling these changes in ways that are holistically oriented and sustainable.

We need flexible and adaptable practices in planning that can adapt to the uncertainties inherent in climate change without losing sight of the overall visions. This is a complex task. And it will require the ability to manage water from all sources and involve many types of professional knowledge, many stakeholders, and many policy areas. For this reason, the starting point of LAVA is to establish partnerships and collaborations capable of operating across scales, time, and levels of planning.

Based in the concept of ‘catchment neighbourhoods’ – whose common framework is water – LAVA is going to examine how we can mitigate the uncertainties resulting from climate change over time. The project raises the questions of where it would be expedient to build in the future, how existing urban areas can be transformed in an expedient manner, which alternative land uses might generate value and added value, and how we might integrate human beings and other species.

To explore this issue, the project is based on the water catchment area of the Egå stream as a deep, real-time case. Through close cooperation with Aarhus Municipality and Aarhus Vand the area’s complex challenges in terms of water and the place-specific potential and transformative capacities over time are investigated. The project comprises an in-depth analysis of challenges and potentials based on landscapes, water, and the existing built environment. The project works across scales and areas of professional knowledge to map the characteristics of the water catchment area. Furthermore, methods, scenarios, and strategies are developed and tested in a full- scale (1:1) context in several iterative pilot projects carried out in collaboration with other municipalities and utilities.

The purpose of the project is to develop visual and place-based methods that may be employed in the development of adaptive strategies and specific solutions. The aim is to demonstrate how we can achieve climate adaptation and urban transformations that are more sustainable and lasting by working across scales and time – always based on water, the natural processes, and the specific foundation of nature and urban areas. Employing a cross-disciplinary approach and close collaboration with stakeholders, the project aims to anchor climate adaptation strategies among citizens and politicians and make visible the under-exploited potentials of landscapes.

Facts

Project Title: LAVA – Landskabet og Vandet som driver for adaptiv planlægning (LAVA – Landscapes and Water as a Driver of Adaptive Planning)
Project manager (contact): Katrina Wiberg
External partners: Aarhus Municipality, Aarhus Vand
Researchers from AAA who participate in the project: Tom Nielsen, Stefan Darlan Boris, Martin Odgaard, Jacob Matthiesen Jørgensen, Jakob Ørum, and Amalie Lykke Baadsgaard.
The project receives funding from Realdania