Waterscapes in transformation: The case of the belgian coastal area

Abstract

The socio-economic impact of nature in Belgian coastal landscapes on a regional scale is high due to their general attractiveness for visitors, their strongly developed tertiary service economy and other related sectors (tourism, residential, agriculture…). Due to climate changes however, these coastal landscapes and their required accessibility and continuous character are threatened by the unavoidable planned infrastructures (dikes, new connections, floodable areas, etc.) that will generate ruptures, frictions and additional transition spaces within the landscape. Flanders urgently needs to unfold policies and strategies to avoid or reduce the undesirable effects of the expected changes. Influential changes for the coastal zone will be sea level rising, increasing temperature, changing rainfall patterns, floods, fragmented ecological system, salinization, and reduced drainage capabilities to sea. A thoughtful planning policy forms the necessary key to a sustainable development. Policies and plans lead to the formulation of spatial proposals for mitigation and adaptation, to be executed by major infrastructural works planned for the next decades. Most of these infrastructures, conceived at a large scale, generate a different model of accessibility for the Flemish Coastal landscape.