Javier Arpa: What does the Special Envoy
for International Water Affairs for the
Kingdom of the Netherlands do? What are
your concerns and objectives?
Henk Ovink: As a water envoy, I have three
tasks. The first is to help raise awareness of
global water challenges and the opportunities
these challenges bring. Raising awareness
starts with increasing the understanding of the
challenges by research and education and
through political activism and collaborations
with many partners across the world. Water
is connected to all challenges of inequality,
insecurity, fragility, environmental degradation,
unsustainable urbanisation and health
problems, and our lack of understanding of this
complexity increases the risks across all
the Sustainable Development Goals. Water
ticks all the boxes and if we understand, value
and manage water right, we can help de-risk
the world.
My second priority is focused on “risks and
rewards”. There is an increase in water disasters
worldwide, with more and worse floods and
droughts. Because of these, more conflicts are
triggered by water crises. Worsening pollution,
a massive lack of safe water availability and
sanitation increase inequality and undermine
emancipation, with devastating health and
security risks. We want to move the world and
the communities at risk from a permanent crisis-
response mode towards real preparedness —
resilience by sustainability through water
security. We must try to rethink the future so
that disasters become opportunities for lasting
change. This triggers my third priority where I
develop — in different coalitions — projects with
transformative capacity for climate impact
and water security, to be scaled and replicated
across their regions and the world.
This is all part of the United Nations 2030
Agenda and the Paris Agreement to make
the world a safer, sustainable and equitable
place for all.
Billions are allocated tackling climate change
but they are being thrown into a kind of
funnel that allows very few of those funds
to arrive at real projects. My focus is to
redesign that funnel and help allocate enough
funds for the much needed, inclusive,
comprehensive and innovative approach, building
capacity and developing innovative proposals,
attracting stakeholders and coming up with
transformative business cases that can guide
the available resources and secure
implementation for the best climate impact. We
need the millions to spend the billions properly!
In a recent and alarming issue of Der Spiegel,
UN experts say that we might still have 200 years
before Europe suffers seriously from rising sea
levels. What do urban regions, in Europe or around
the world, such as Osaka (Japan), Alexandria
(Egypt), Rio De Janeiro (Brazil), Shanghai
(China) and Miami (USA) need to do before
the consequences of sea-level rise become
irreversible?
There are three interlinked challenges to this
story. One is sea-level rise, the other is land
subsidence and the third is the increase in the
magnitude of storms. We are depleting our
aquifers in a rapid and unsustainable way as
water demand exceeds our natural water
supply. This behaviour makes our cities sink
more and faster than ever before.
Cities can sink 100 times faster than sea-level
rise and the mix is becoming more and more
lethal. The growing magnitude of the storms
coupled with sea-level rise turn the surges –
that batter our beaches, deltas and coastal
cities – into lethal floods, more devastating
every year, with more casualties and worse
economic and environmental losses.
According to a study led by the lead-economist
of the World Bank Stéphane HallegatteAsia, the
East Coast of the United States, and the
Netherlands are the three main regions in the
world where the most assets are at risk in
2050 due to sea level rise and surges.For centuries, the Netherlands has been
undertaking the mammoth task of protecting
the land against flooding. Given the current sea-
level rise projections, what is the future? A
25-metre wall around the country?
No, and I think the Netherlands is a good
example of the much needed incremental
process. You could say this is what resilience
is actually about: it is not a defence strategy, it
is pro-active, collaborative and future-oriented.
The two principles the Netherlands was built
upon are safety and quality. We built a democracy
out of our water collaboration and learned
over time that there are no single approaches to
complex challenges. It is not only sea-level rise
that matters. Urbanisation, an aging
population, changes in mobility, infrastructure
and energy demands and ecological and
environmental degradation are all connected
and must be understood and approached
comprehensively in order to create opportunities
and build resilience. Sea-level rise is
speeding up so we have to adapt differently,
move faster and be more flexible.
The Netherlands also has immense capacity in
our social, ecological and economic system, in
our governmental and collaborative pro-
activeness to pick speed and act innovatively.
We are, in a way, the testing ground for the
world; this is where we can learn from the pastWe still have time to save
the planet but the change
has to come from us
collectively
and leapfrog to the future, inspiring others to
work with us and do the same. Because we are
willing to work with the world for innovative
and inclusive climate impact.You developed the “Rebuild by Design” competition
in the New York area. What was this project about?
Developed in the aftermath of Hurricane
Sandy, the Rebuild by Design competition was
aimed at bringing the talent of the world to the
New York region and connecting institutions,
individuals, the public and private sector,
academia, NGOs, activists, designers,
engineers, social scientists, politicians,
policymakers, and researchers from around the
region and the world to build coalitions. By
working together with a comprehensive approach
and first analysing what happened, we can
understand the vulnerabilities and opportunities,
and identify where risks can lead to
opportunities. Superstorm Sandy was, just like
any other disaster, an x-ray of the region’s
challenges — mapping them out together was
the foundation for innovative and effective
climate action.
With a call to the world, we attracted 148 teams.
Selecting ten, we turned them into one big
coalition spread around the region and
connected them with everyone and everything.
Based on their research, we identified over 40
opportunities for change. Ten moved forward
and six proposals became real winners, with the
transformative capacity to build a better future.
The federal government allocated one billion
recovery dollars for their implementation. From
that, we scaled up “Rebuild by Design” to the
USA with a national resilience competition
and to the San Francisco Bay Area with
“Resilient by Design”. The initial phases of the
first “Rebuild by Design” projects are now being
implemented in Hoboken and Staten Island,
on Manhattan and Long Island and in the
Meadowlands and Bridgeport.You recently launched the “Water as Leverage
for Resilient Cities Asia” initiative, addressing
water crises in Chennai (India), Khulna
(Bangladesh) and Semarang (Indonesia). What
can design do in threatened areas when
resources are far more limited than in New York
City or Miami?
“Water as Leverage” came from our research on
the urban climate and water vulnerabilities
in South and South East Asia, trying to identify
hotspots for change.
Out of a list of over 30 cities, we selected these
three very different ones as they are exemplary
for the region in their urban, water and climate
risks. I developed a process whereby design
provides an innovative capacity to analyse