Have you not been able to attend the webinar?

• Read more in the webinar report (pdf)
• The recording of the webinar is available at Water Channel TV  
• On 16 June (14.00 CET) a second webinar will be take place about the Dutch delta, the Bangladesh delta and possibly other deltas.

Speakers

• Wim Timmermans, Wageningen Environmental Research (Alterra), thought leader Delta Alliance
• Verónica Zagare, Coordinator Delta Alliance Wing Argentina
• Ken Kinney, Coordinator Delta Alliance Wing Ghana
• Dirk Wasscher, Wageningen Environmental Research (Alterra), the Netherlands

Webinar programme

• the Parana delta in Argentina, where rapid urbanisation threatens the sustainability of urban communities, presented by Veronica Zagare, Delft University of Technology
• the Volta delta in Ghana, where a combination of urban development and industrial agriculture is putting pressures on food supply and livelihoods of local communities, presented by Ken Kinney, The Development Institute, Ghana

Further, Dirk Wasscher from Wageningen Environmental Research will discuss the relation between urban food security and delta development.

A question and answer session will be included in the webinar and will be concluded with a reflection on the framework presented.

Description / framework

What does ‘Delta Development’ really mean? What does development mean for a delta city? And what does it mean for the larger, surrounding delta landscape? Can the two objectives be reconciled?

• Governance: the main focus of delta programmes is water safety. There is a need to reconcile the priorities of water authorities (catchment areas, rivers, coast lines, and sea water); city planners (high investment plans in urban areas); rural planners (typically low investment plans); and citizens (direct changes to their neighbourhood). 
  These stakeholders have different time horizons: water authorities’ water safety plans have over 50-year time horizons, while urban and rural territorial plans typically have 20-year outlooks.
  Measures employed by one group of stakeholders have effects on others. Measures taken in cities - for example widening of river beds or lakes, restoration of open areas for water retention, removal of houses and buildings -has unwanted formal and informal developments on areas supplying food, water, infrastructure or nature services to the city. 
• Natural Resource Management: Delta cities can be classified into one of these five categories, based on the larger landscape they are located within: mountainous, lowland, delta, costal lowland, or coastal hilly. Accordingly, they have different flooding vulnerabilities.

• A plea for putting the issue of Urbanizing Deltas on the new urban agenda

This webinar is organised under the auspices of Delta Alliance in association with Wageningen Environmental Research (Alterra).