SCAPE
Shaping Climate change Adaptive PlacEs
Priority Axis
Adaptation to Climate ChangeSpecific objective
Adaptation to Climate Change
Lead partner
Stad OostendeContact
Start Date
01/09/2016End Date
31/12/2021Project budget
5 995 240 €ERDF amount
3 597 144 €ERDF rate
60%About
Common challenge
Coastal landscapes in the 2 Seas area are particularly sensitive to the water-related effects of climate change, specifically flooding, rainfall and drought. To become more resilient to climate change, a better understanding of water management solutions that can improve the ability of these landscapes, to cope with intense rainfall and rising sea levels is needed. SCAPE addressed this challenge by developing and testing innovative water management solutions for coastal sites in urban, rural and fringe areas that experience flooding problems using a landscape led design (LLD) approach.
Overall objective
Main outputs
Cross border approach
Main Achievements
Connecting green and blue areas, taking blue/green measures, creating more biodiversity and increasing water buffer capacity are the cornerstones of SCAPE. Landscape Led Design (LLD) principles will be the base for future designs in the public area for the partners and a lot of target groups that partners reached throughout the project.
The project accomplished 6 pilot sites that make a long-term difference when it comes to climate resilience (adaptation to heavy rainfall). These pilots sites also have multiple beneficial side effects, including raising awareness, creating recreational facilities and improving biodiversity.
Specifically in the pilot areas, the project partners have provided visible examples on the ground that show/demystify how landscape led design measures can be delivered and functional, concrete applications of public-private cooperation and shared approaches that would not have been possible if partners had acted alone and in isolation
Thanks to the SCAPE project, large areas have become a green and resilient lung for hundreds of users, where LLD solutions and an optimized water balance with flood preventive measures created a better living environment and biodiversity: these can act as examples for future investments.
Throughout the project duration, many people learned and responded a great deal to shared knowledge and cross border workshops. (e.g.: companies using plastic liner as impermeable layer, have replaced this by clay - which is much more sustainable, and landscape led). Raising awareness is a success and different target groups are now more aware about the added value of LLD. The crossover & integrated approach has been particularly fruitful and is now much more accepted in relevant organisations. The results of this approach are also highly appreciated by residents and visitors to the pilot areas.
The SCAPE approach for the climate test and the process of design and evaluation have improved cross-service cooperation (e.g. a cross-service maintenance plan has been made for the urban pilot in Brighton - this would not have been possible without the proven results of this approach in SCAPE). SCAPE opened up partners’ eyes to use the landscape led design principles and to use them in a variety of areas to be developed in the future as the cooperation between partners continues beyond the project.
Testimonial
We became more aware of the landscape. For example, the gravity in Brighton is different than in Ostend. The landscape plays a huge part in defining the solution. Different landscapes need different solutions and seeing the variety helps understanding this better. So the pilot sites brought more insights on differences and similarities and how to approach these than originally expected.
LLD was also more in the mindset in the UK than in Belgium (or even the Netherlands). But this project improved the LLD approach and influenced design choices for all partners, also the UK partners.
The definition of landscape was a lot different in the beginning, the different perspectives enriched each other and led to a more shared definition of landscape and LLD.
An important result of SCAPE is that the technical engineers are now more aware that they have to make use of landscape characteristics to increase the level of climate change when executing civil engineering projects. In the future integrated management plans will be put in place to ensure that the benefits of LLD are maintained beyond the life of the project.
Specifically for the neighbourhood Stene in Ostend, the Gardens of Stene made quite a change for the people living there. On average 85% of the Ostend people have access to a green area in the neighbourhood. Nevertheless, Stene was excluded, the Gardens of Stene weren't an accessible area. Now it is open for the public. But additional, the LLD strategy was integrated in developments and open space in this neighbourhood: a co-housing project with 18 entities/owners was realised. 2 new farmers are working on site, who adopted the LDD strategy.