The Interreg North-West Europe programme promotes transnational cooperation to make North-West Europe a key economic player and an attractive place to work and live, with high levels of innovation, sustainability and cohesion.
BONSAI Boosting flood resilience in estuarine systems anticipating shifting climate zones
Date of begginning: 01/01/2025
End date: 30/06/2029
Total budget of the project: 10 699 561.10 €
ERDF funding: 6 419 736.62 € (funding rate 60%)
Main objectives of the project:
Climate change is accelerating, increasing the frequency of precipitation, droughts, storms, floods, and sea level rise. This particularly impacts the NWE region and its vast estuarine systems. How can we better prepare this area for climate change in the long term?
The BONSAI project aims to strengthen the resilience of flood defense systems in NWE estuaries in the short and long term, drawing inspiration from different European climates and sharing proactive and reactive measures. This enables flood risk management organizations and local partners to build their capacity, improve their resilience, and respond more effectively to extreme weather events.
BONSAI offers a holistic approach focused on the resilience of protection systems (short- and long-term) and improved crisis management. Different countries in the NWE are addressing these challenges from their own perspectives. The aim is to encourage transnational cooperation, which is essential in the face of climate change that knows no borders, enabling mutual learning and strengthening resilience.
The BONSAI initiative is unique in that it 1. links the three levels of water safety: prevention, crisis management, and spatial planning; 2. simulates climate change by applying knowledge from southern regions to northern regions; and 3. focuses on international cooperation to learn from each other, with the north learning from the south and the south learning from the north.
Expected results:
Les résultats are:
- a cross-border strategy for national authorities and a three action plans for regional and local authorities
- five solutions to improve robustness, resilience, and crisis management
- several training courses and course materials on flood crisis management and resilience, and one transnational academy on the subject of flooding
Partners :
- STOWA - Stichting Toegepast Onderzoek Waterbeheer
- USIEGEN - University of Siegen
- KU Leuven - Hydraulics and Geotechnics, Department of Civil Engineering.
- RWS - Ministerie van Infrastructuur en Waterstaat – Rijkswaterstaat
- DMOW - Departement Mobiliteit en Openbare Werken
- HZ - Stichting HZ University of Applied Sciences
- Cerema - CENTRE D'ETUDES ET D'EXPERTISE SUR LES RISQUES L'ENVIRONNEMENT LA MOBILITE ET L'AMENA
- MinDef - Ministerie van Defensie
- DVW - Flemish Waterways
- NZV - Waterboard Noorderzijlvest
- ISL - ISL Ingénierie
- HHNK - Regional Water Authority of Hollands Noorderkwartier
- ESTP - French graduate school of engineering
- UCLouvain - Catholic University of Louvain
- INBO - Research Institute for Nature and Forest
- RU - Radboud University
Contact à l'Université de Lille : Ammar ALJER
Laboratoire LGCgE
Bâtiment ESPRIT- Campus Cité Scientifique
Université de Lille
Lille- France
Ammar.aljer[at]univ-lille[point]fr
Tel : +33 362 26 89 78