On 10 October 2025, the Floating Pavilion at RDM Rotterdam buzzed with energy as more than a hundred researchers, policymakers, and practitioners came together for the annual Red&Blue Symposium. Under the theme “From risky urban waterfronts”, the event invited participants to explore the urgent choices facing the Dutch delta: how to balance safety, equity, and livability in a changing climate.

From keynote insights to hands-on workshops, the day offered a rich mix of perspectives on how to turn risk into resilience —not only through engineering, but also through governance, finance, and social innovation. It turned out to be a great and inspiring day, due to the efforts of the Red & Blue consortium led by Audrey Esteban (TU Delft), Ted Veldkamp (Hogeschool Rotterdam), Luc Ponsioen (TU Delft) and Matthijs Kok (TU Delft) representing Workpackages 4: about Technical Climate Risk Management Strategies and 6: Urban Use Cases in the Greater Rotterdam Area.

Setting the stage: the urgency of structural choices

In their opening remarks, Ellen van Bueren (TU Delft) and Ted Veldkamp (Hogeschool Rotterdam) emphasized that the Netherlands’ urbanized delta is entering a decisive decade. Climate change and housing needs are colliding in space and time and so pressing us to rethink how we design, finance, and govern waterfront development.

Keynote speaker Jesse M. Keenan (Tulane University) then expanded the view beyond Europe, reflecting on “The Future of Post-Climate America.” His talk illustrated how climate risks are reshaping real estate markets, infrastructure planning, and public policy in the U.S., offering lessons for Dutch cities navigating similar pressures. His attitude showed us that science-driven research and passion for collectively improving our living environment can go hand in hand.

A panel with representatives from the Delta Programme followed, with Wieke Pot from the Wetenschappelijke Klimaatraad, Saskia Vuren (Deltaprogram) & Detmer Koekoek (NL AAA-Klimaatbestendig), stressing that adaptation is not only a technical task but a societal transformation.

From theory to practice: workshops across the delta

After lunch, the symposium opened a series of parallel workshops and interactive sessions, each tackling a different piece of the adaptation puzzle, from insurance and housing to governance, water labels, and decision-making tools. Together, they painted a detailed picture of where the Netherlands stands and where it needs to go.

Session 1: Institutionalized Responses to Climate Risk in the Dutch Financial Sector

This workshop, led by Abdi Mehvar and Tom Daamen (both TU Delft), brought together representatives from ministries, municipalities, financial institutions, and research organizations to explore how Dutch banks, insurers, and pension funds are responding to growing physical climate risks. The session combined research insights with sector-wide reflection, highlighting both practical actions and the underlying institutional logics shaping them.

Participants learned that although all financial actors acknowledge climate risks, their priorities diverge. Banks focus on household vulnerability and the limited financing available for climate-proofing; insurers face tightening limits to insurability as floods intensify; and pension funds struggle to value long-term adaptation benefits. Current adaptation efforts remain concentrated at the building and national levels, leaving neighbourhood-scale challenges (critical for managing heat and social vulnerability) insufficiently addressed.

Responsibility for adaptation is widely seen as shared, yet interpreted differently: banks emphasize joint action with clients and government, insurers link coverage to prevention and public protection, and pension funds act through long-term stewardship supported by clear policy frameworks. Mehvar’s AI-supported analysis of 33 institutions revealed six guiding logics: 1) financial/market, 2) regulatory/compliance, 3) public value, 4) prevention and insurability, 5) stewardship, and 6) ecological resilience. Tensions appeared between solidarity and insurability, financial returns and ecological goals, and between required prevention and household affordability.

In the discussion, participants noted that public climate reports serve many purposes (regulation, communication, reputation) so they often reveal narratives rather than internal decision-making. The Dutch sector was seen as relatively willing to trade short-term returns for long-term resilience. The workshop concluded that meaningful adaptation requires reforming dominant institutional logics and strengthening public-value, stewardship, and collaborative orientations across the sector. The next steps should be targeted expert dialogues to validate and deepen findings and explore practical instruments. So that will be next!

Session 2: Insurance in a Climate-Adaptive Delta

In two back-to-back sessions organized by Mats Lucia (TU Delft), María Fonseca Cerda (VU Amsterdam), and Zac Taylor (TU Delft), participants explored how insurance can strengthen or constrain climate adaptation in the Netherlands.

Researchers Daan van Ederen (IVM Institute for Environmental Studies), Michiel Ingels (VU Amsterdam), and Stefany Moreno Burbano (Maastricht University) presented cutting-edge studies on flood losses and insurability, showing how climate change is reshaping financial risks for both households and businesses. Van Ederen’s improved depth–damage function, based on data from the 2021 Limburg floods, revealed that existing models underestimate damage — a finding with billion-euro implications for insurers and policymakers alike.

Ingels and Burbano showed how rising premiums and shifting risk perceptions are altering the boundaries of what can still be insured, in the Netherlands and abroad. In the U.S., for instance, the cost of insuring commercial real estate has doubled in two decades, challenging the viability of entire markets.

In the second session, Vera Konings (City of Rotterdam) and Vylon Ooms (Dutch Association of Insurers) joined the discussion to explore the local implications. How can Rotterdam’s unembanked areas (such as Rijnhaven and M4H) remain attractive and equitable when they are technically uninsurable?

The debate underscored the need for integrated strategies linking urban planning, insurance, and finance and using premiums and incentives not just for recovery, but as levers for proactive adaptation. As one participant noted: “Insurance is not just a safety net — it can be a design tool for resilience.”

Session 3: Adaptive Pathways for Water Management Measures

Led by Luc Ponsioen (TU Delft) and Maged Elsamny (AMS Institute), this interactive session used the Haven-Stad area in Amsterdam as a testing ground for discussing adaptation pathways in unembanked urban areas.

Participants physically positioned themselves in the room to debate provocative statements such as “Involving more governmental organizations makes development unnecessarily expensive” and “An affordable house should be available everywhere in the Netherlands.”

The exercise revealed a core dilemma: while collaboration between multiple public actors is often essential, too much institutional layering can slow progress and raise costs. Similarly, participants grappled with the balance between equity and feasibility,  acknowledging that universal affordability may be desirable in principle but difficult to realize in practice without targeted subsidies.

The session’s dynamic format brought governance and social considerations to the forefront of what are often seen as technical planning questions, reminding everyone that adaptation is as much about decision-making and social fairness as it is about engineering.

Session 4: Interdisciplinary Insights on Water Labels

In the session organized by Cees Oerlemans (TU Delft) and Zeynep Aslan (Erasmus University), participants explored the concept of water risk labels — tools designed to communicate flood risks to homeowners in clear and actionable ways.

The group debated whether minor and major flood risks should be represented through separate labels or a single integrated system, and whether such classifications could empower or confuse residents. Participants highlighted the communication challenge of arbitrary thresholds: how to make risk transparent without creating false security or fear?

The discussion linked technical flood modelling with behavioral economics, examining how people actually respond to risk information. Interestingly, evidence from the Red&Blue project suggests that more information does not always motivate action — a paradox that calls for smarter, not just clearer, communication. The session concluded with a shared insight: adaptation is a collective challenge, but communication happens one household at a time.

Session 5: Water and the Housing Crisis: Passing the Buck — or Not?

In his session “Water en Woningnood — Niet afwentelen! Of toch wel?”, Ties Rijcken (TU Delft) brought together experts from the worlds of housing, policy, and water management to dissect the “no shifting of burdens” (niet afwentelen) principle in current housing regulation for peak rainfall.

Chaired by Matthijs Kok (TU Delft), speakers Luc Ponsioen (TU Delft), Martijn van Gelderen (Adviesgroep Stoer) and Anke van Houten (Unie van Waterschappen) were followed by reflections by Ard Wolters (Ministery of Infrastructure and Water), Arnold van ‘t Veld (Merosch) and Coen van Rooyen (WoningbouwersNL). The discussion was sharp: should each new housing project solve its peak-rainfall challenges locally, or should the regional or even national water system better bear more responsibility? The most practical standards were discussed from different perspectives of climate justice as formulated by the national scientific council for the government (WRR): honouring agreements, polluter pays, efficiency and solidarity.

The lively debate exposed tensions between local autonomy and systemic solutions. A project developer pressed the issue of many people and children currently living on the streets, and these issues are too urgent to have us quarrel too long over regulations. So, while decentralization fosters innovation, many warned that an overly strict interpretation of “no shifting” (niet afwentelen) could slow housing delivery or deepen regional inequalities. Participants agreed that policy alignment between housing and water governance remains one of the most urgent and unresolved issues in Dutch spatial planning today.

Session 6: Serious Game: Decision-Making on Urban Rainwater and Subsidence

Meanwhile, Richard Pompoes (WUR) and Lilian van Karnenbeek (UU) led an engaging serious game simulating how municipalities, property owners, and developers respond to rainwater and subsidence challenges.

Set in the fictional city of “Maasveen,” the game invits participants to negotiate measures, budgets, and responsibilities: revealing how difficult it can be to balance private and public interests under real-world constraints. Beyond its playfulness, the exercise generated valuable data for ongoing PhD research on collaborative decision-making in climate adaptation. It was enlighting to see how not only during the game itself, but after and during the ‘borrel’, the different choices made and gameplay sparked lively conversation and insight in the field. 

Reflections and Next Steps

In the closing plenary, societal partners shared reflections on the day’s discussions. Across all sessions, several common threads emerged:

• Integration across systems: linking spatial planning, finance, and governance rather than treating them as silos.

• Equity and inclusion: ensuring adaptation measures do not deepen social divides.

• Communication and trust: developing narratives and instruments that empower people to act.

• Experimentation and learning: treating uncertainty not as paralysis, but as a design condition.

As one participant summarized: “Resilience is not a fixed state, it’s a shared process of learning, adapting, and building together.”

The Red&Blue community will carry these insights forward in 2026 through ongoing collaborations between universities, municipalities, and societal partners. The symposium reaffirmed that facing climate risks in the delta is not just about defending against water, it’s about designing a livable future around it. 

We carried this affirmation with us during the Deltacongres 2025 and Stadsmakerscongres, where we both discussed the spatial implications of defening ourselves against water, as well as the financial constructions needed to realize them.

Text by Vera Kuipers
Pictures by Annelies van ‘t Hul Fotografie