Abstract

Hydraulic engineering infrastructure is supposed to keep functioning for many years and is likely to interfere with both the natural and the social environment at various scales. Due to its long life-cycle, hydraulic infrastructure is bound to face changing environmental conditions as well as changes in societal views on acceptable solutions. This implies that sustainability and adaptability are/should be important attributes of the design, the development and operation of hydraulic engineering infrastructure. Sustainability and adaptability are central to the Building with Nature (BwN) approach. Although nature-based design philosophies, such as BwN, have found broad support, a key issue that inhibits a wider mainstream implementation is the lack of a method to objectify BwN concepts. With objectifying, we mean turning the implicit into an explicit engineerable ‘object’, on the one hand, and specifying clear design ‘objectives’, on the other. This paper proposes the “Frame of Reference” approach as a method to systematically transform BwN concepts into functionally specified engineering designs. It aids the rationalisation of BwN concepts and facilitates the transfer of crucial information between project development phases, which benefits the uptake, acceptance and eventually the successful realisation of BwN solutions. It includes an iterative approach that is well suited for assessing status changes of naturally dynamic living building blocks of BwN solutions. The applicability of the approach is shown for a case that has been realised in the Netherlands. Although the example is Dutch, the method, as such, is generically applicable.

Highlights

  • Should be important attributes of the design, the development and operation of hydraulic engineering infrastructure

  • In this paper we demonstrate the importance of objectification as an enabler for the design and implementation of Building with Nature (BwN) solutions, while testing the Frame of Reference (FoR) approach (Van Koningsveld and Mulder, 2004; Laboyrie et al, 2018) as a means to do so

  • This paper has shown the use of the FoR approach to rationally identify and structure physically explicit building blocks of BwN concepts

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Summary

Introduction

Should be important attributes of the design, the development and operation of hydraulic engineering infrastructure. Sustainability and adaptability are central to the Building with Nature (BwN) approach. Nature-based design philosophies, such as BwN, have found broad support, a key issue that inhibits a wider mainstream implementation is the lack of a method to objectify. This paper proposes the “Frame of Reference” approach as a method to systematically transform BwN concepts into functionally specified engineering designs. It aids the rationalisation of BwN concepts and facilitates the transfer of crucial information between project development phases, which benefits the uptake, acceptance and eventually the successful realisation of. It includes an iterative approach that is well suited for assessing status changes of naturally dynamic living building blocks of BwN solutions. Present-day trends in society (urbanisation, growing global trade and energy demand, stakeholder emancipation, increasing environmental concern) and in the environment (loss of biodiversity, climate change, sea level rise, subsidence, etc.) put ever higher demands on the engineering of infra-

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