Successful kick-off meeting for climate adaptation in the Zwolle NOVI area
The Zwolle Region had a successful kick-off meeting for cooperation on climate adaptation in the Zwolle Region NOVI area. “We are on the eve of a large-scale reconstruction of the Netherlands and we have to get it right first time," said dike reeve Dirk-Siert Schoonman of the Drents Overijsselse Delta water authority during the digital meeting.
The meeting, which was organised from a studio in Meppel, attracted nearly two hundred participants. Hannie te Grotenhuis chaired the event and took time to consider the steps that all the partners in the Zwolle region can and must take to become more climate-resilient. On behalf of Deltares, Karin de Bruijn presented the hackathon on the ‘water bomb’ (in response to the extreme rainfall last July in Limburg) that could also fall in the Zwolle region.
The table discussions were interspersed with videos showing examples of how the Zwolle region is already working on climate resilience: Dwingelderveld, Kraanbolwerk and Room for the Vecht. Time was also put aside to look at the climate challenges for the more distant future and the next generation.
Mayor Peter Snijders, chair of the Zwolle Region: “We are an ambitious region. We want to be the fourth top economic region by 2030. We have arrived at an agreement about that with one another. At the same time: that growth will have an impact on us. For example, we will need more homes and there will be more jobs. Space in our region is scarce and our status under the NOVI (National environment planning vision) helps us to address the question of how we are going to plan that process in climate-resilient and water-robust ways in the long term. The lines of communication are short in the region and with the national government. We really are doing it together.”