LC 00014

By looking at the the activities, actors and methods/approaches used, this section will provide a better understanding of the the implementation process of the MLS approach. We will look describe the point of departure, describe who was involved (when, why and how) and what key decisive moments there were.

Point of departure of FRM strategies

The figure depicting the desired score to reach per layer in this pilot (before and after FRAMES) is under construction.

Stakeholders involved

The primary stakeholders are citizens and companies located in flood-prone zones (as defined by the flood risk maps). In addition, the following stakeholders are identified:

Public actors:

• Municipality of Ninove
• Fire brigade of Ninove
• Flemish spatial planning department (Department Omgeving)
• Water management agencies:
  • The Flemish Waterways (De Vlaamse Waterweg)
  • VVM (Flanders Environment Agency)
  • Province of East-Flanders
  • Aquafin
  • Schools

Citizens:

• Inhabitants/farmers of neighbouring non-floodable areas (encouraging water infiltration and retention measures)
• Local organisations: neighbours’ information networks, Ninove Welzijn
• Neighbourhoods:
  • Neighbourhood of Okegem (50 citizens)
  • Neighbourhood of Denderkaai-Parklaan (100 citizens)
  • Neighbourhood of Elsbeek (40 citizens)
  • Neighbourhood of Wolfputbeek (40 citizens)

Private actors:The initial plan was to involve several private actors. Following the delimitation of the focus zone in the Ninove pilot, no private actors were invited.

Main activities

At the start of the project, the Province of East Flanders and the UGhent developed a participation strategy including a stakeholder analysis whom they wanted to reach, and how to involve them. There were three target groups: flood-prone citizens (1), wider community (2) and local governments (3).

1.       Flood prone citizens

 Community resilience workshops were organised as a mean to involve flood-prone citizens, to raise awareness, activate them, change their attitude towards what they can do themselves, find citizens that are interested to become part of working groups to work on a specific product / topic.

• First door-to-door visits were done with flood-prone citizens to get a good idea of the profile of the people, raise their interest in participating in the community resilience workshops.
• 5 workshops have been organized so far:
  • 2 at the fire brigade in Ninove: first one to inform people, play ‘positioning game’, 24 people participated; second one to activate them: which measures could they take?, ask them to participate in working groups, 11 people participated; lower turn-out for second one expected because not so many people are interested in taking measures themselves.
  • 1 workshop in a café ‘De Belleman’. 30 people attended, this was the most promising group’ with 10 people ready to work on a preparedness manual to give to new inhabitants in the area.
  • 1 working session to make preparedness manual. Unfortunately, only 1 person attended. Several potential reasons for the low turn-out were put forward. The location was different being in the sport complex. The complex, being relatively distant from the residential area, the inhabitants would have to leave their houses in a wintery evening and bad weather. The café offered a familiar, comfortable environment and drinks were offered by the Province. Furthermore, in previous workshops, a lack of interest and confidence in the workshops’ necessity was noticeable due to the standpoint that flood management is solely a governments’ responsibility and the fear that such involvement would require a lot of time. The citizens were consequently contacted in person to attend the next workshop but there was very low enthusiasm.
  • 1 workshop in Okegem on which 20 people attended. The attendees expressed a large discontent over the current flood management. The responsibility of all the flood issues and measures were solely laid upon the government. The attendees reacted with very low enthusiasm to the prospect of developing community resilience.

2.       Wider community

•  1 community resilience workshop was organised with Babbelonie-initiative to reach people with a migration background that are less proficient in Flemish. This had a good result in terms of raising awareness but did not result in further steps for practical measures.
• Different presentations were given at 4 meetings of Neighbourhood Information Networks at Ninove to make flood risk / water an issue there. The Neighbourhood Information Networks are citizens’ networks under the supervision of the head of police department. Its purpose is to ease the information flow within a neighbourhood for security matters. 

3.       Local authorities

•  In the beginning of the pilot, contacts were established with several local governments (Ninove, Denderleeuw, Liedekerke). The FRAMES project was presented to find out who is interested in participating, where to carry out the community resilience workshops, etc...
  • The Province stayed away from asking too much engagement of the local governments, because they knew that they only have limited capacities. Local governments have now a rather passive attitude in the FRAMES pilot.
  • Talks with local governments showed that particularly Ninove was interested without actively participating. The emergency planning officer from Ninove got appointed to work together with Province in the FRAMES pilot (for example, he helped that the first community resilience workshop was organized at the fire brigade of Ninove; emergency planning officer was present, but not very active)
• Cooperation with a consultancy to start a Research by Design resulted in design proposals for making a specific neighbourhood in Ninove climate-proof / flood-proof. Afterwards the Province, the city of Ninove (department head), social housing company and sewage company agreed to take the process forward, and this will ideally result in a plan for climate / flood-proofing the neighbourhood.

Referenties

• FRAMES Baseline monitor survey Ninove, Mees and Tempels, 1 januari 2017.