CATCH introduced at Amsterdam International Water Week 2019
CATCH was introduced at the Resilient Cities Leader Forum (RCLF). The RCLF had as theme the development of a water sensitive future with a specific focus on local level adaptation. We were honoured that Gitte Grove Poulsen, Chief Resilience Officer of the Danish city of Vejle, introduced our CATCH project in Vejle. She presented the efforts that are undertaken and the challenges that they encountered while improving the climate resilience of Vejle. After this, an interactive dialogue followed where experiences and lessons learned were shared by the Australian city of Townsville. This city is part of a network of six Australian cities that is developing water sensitive city visions and transition strategies. It should be noted that these cities are focusing on prolonged heat and dryness, while the Danish city of Vejle is focusing more on floods and the excess of water. At the end of this session, it became clear that we should also think about the future within the North Sea Region. We we take a look at the dry summers of 2018 and 2019, it is clear that it will not always be obvious that we have too much water. We also need to prioritize the issue of drought. Next to this, the importance of a more inclusive collaboration where civil society is a main stakeholder was highlighted.
In addition, CATCH played a leading role in the AIWW workshop “Benchmarking and navigation in planning of climate adaptation of midsize cities?”. CATCH is developing a www-based dashboard that can primarily support small and medium sized cities to become water resilient and climate adaptive. An update about the development of this CATCH decision support tool and the practical experiences by the Danish city of Vejle was given. Feedback was provided by the attendees after the update. In general, the decision support tool was well received. The collected feedback will be shared among the CATCH-partnership in order to further develop the tool.