The power of imagination in climate change adaptation

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While affluent regions like the Netherlands grapple with escalating costs and complexity to overhaul existing systems, deltas in low- and middle-income countries also wrestle with rapid urbanization and scarce resources.

Traditional mitigation models seem inadequate to furnish these deltas for an uncertain future.

The solution, as Zevenbergen suggests, lies in evolving more flexible approaches and using imagination and "design-based research."

"Ask the wider society: what do we want our country to look like in 100 years? What do we really care about? And then visualize possible futures," suggests Zevenberger.

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