BONSAI: Boosting flood resilience in estuarine systems anticipating shifting climate zones
BONSAI is the name for an Interreg North-West Europe project encompassing 17 organisations from 4 European countries. It is a framework in which the organisations work closely together to make flood defence systems more resilient to climate change.
Working Towards Proactive and Adaptive Flood Protection in North-West Europe
BONSAI aims to make flood defence systems in tidal estuaries of western Europe more resilient in the short and long term to climate change by learning from sites in different climate zones throughout Europe and by developing and sharing pro-active and responsive measures. Building capacity allows organisations responsible for flood resilience and societal partners in tidal estuaries in western Europe, to strengthen their resilience in case extreme weather brings the threat of flooding.
Resilient flood protection systems
Rijkswaterstaat benefits from and contributes to the BONSAI-project by sharing and co-developing knowledge on the topics of Nature-based Solutions, animal burrows, disaster management and erosion.
The benefits are exercised in our goal of maintaining flood protection systems, making them resilient to weather conditions, now and in the future.
Shifting climate zones
Today’s climates in southern regions are tomorrow’s climates in northern regions. Current flood emergency responses in northern regions are what southern regions can expect in the future. By sharing embankment management practices, the Estuarine Region of western Europe could improve its overall resilience to climate change.
Improved resilience through knowledge sharing
The results of pilot schemes and training will enable the BONSAI-partners to jointly develop and embed a transnational strategy for improved resilience to predicted and other climate change effects on flood defence systems in the estuaries of North-West Europe. This also applies to the 3 action plans below:
- short-term flood defence robustness
- long-term resilience
- disaster management
The project aims to provide guidance for the future, using existing as well as newly developed knowledge.
Project period
January 2025 - June 2029
European Programme
Project Website
Partners
STOWA, Universität Siegen, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Université de Lille, Departement Mobiliteit en Openbare Werken, HZ University of Applied Sciences, CEREMA, Ministerie van Defensie, De Vlaamse Waterweg, Waterschap Noorderzijlvest, ISL Ingénierie (FR), Hoogheemraadschap Hollands Noorderkwartier, ESTP - Grande école d’ingénieurs de la Construction, Université Catholique de Louvain, Instituut voor Natuur- en Bosonderzoek, Radboud University.
