Water fight: A spatial planning perspective to implement spatial measures for water management

In this paper, difficulties with the implementation of spatial measures for flood risk reduction are explored in more detail through the examination of five Dutch projects. The implementation of these measures was sometimes problematic. Measures for flood management were developed in the domain of water management and from a water-management perspective. Other regional and local ideas on both plan content and the way a plan has to come about were neglected, which resulted into conflicts. In this light, it is argued that spatial planning should not only be regarded as an instrument to regulate land use, but also as an instrument through which participation can be facilitated and through which water management objectives can be confronted with other ideas of other actors. In addition, the authorities can take advantage of informal aspects of the planning process, such as dialogue and negotiation. Even though this strategy is time consuming at the start, it is expected that it speeds up and smoothes project implementation in the end, leading to more balanced spatial coherence in a region.