Spatial planning

Economic activity, rising populations and the impact of climate change are generating increasing pressure on habitable space in deltas, river basins and coastal areas. That makes area development a complex business.
Where water and soil are critical factors, the debate will be about more than just technological issues. For example, a range of policy agendas are usually involved, as well as several stakeholders, and nature will play an important role. So area development has to be approached from various angles.

Integrated area development aims to combine all these 'hard' and 'soft' perspectives in the light of the local context. The integrated approach contributes to the spatial planning process and the design of an area. Ultimately, that results in a sustainable structure for our living environment.
Deltares supports its clients during this process. We manage and facilitate both the process and the content; the aim is to generate high-grade technological solutions that have the support of society in general. We develop methods tailored to clients' specific requirements and put them into practice. We do this in the following areas:

• Knowledge integration and knowledge management in water and soil assignments
  In area development processes, as in the IJssel Lake area, we make sure that the right knowledge is available at the right time. Our professionals know how to bring stakeholders together and help them during the design and monitoring of the process.
• Development and application of instruments for planning processes
  We develop and apply instruments that help our clients during their planning processes. For example, there is the digital drawing desk, or actor analyses. We help our clients to team up with other stakeholders to produce solutions with wide support.
•  Research by design
  This method focuses on issues in which the design of spatial plans plays a central role. On the basis of the design, we look to see what knowledge we need to implement the plans.