Dr. Arjan Wardekker is an interdisciplinary environmental scientist (social science, natural science, some humanities). His work focuses on ‘Urban Resilience & Climate Change Adaptation under Uncertainty’ (strategies & options, framing, decision-support tools, visualisation & communication). He is also interested in broader aspects of urban studies & futures, climate risk management, and governance under uncertainty.
Dr. Wardekker is currently based as a Senior Researcher and Project Leader at Utrecht University (Copernicus Institute for Sustainable Development) and as long-term Visiting Scholar at University of Bergen (Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities). He’s also worked at several science-policy boundary organisations and government. Some specific topics of interest include: choice processes and principles in designing resilient cities; tools to support deliberation and reflexivity on choices and trade-offs among actors; governance under surprise & ignorance; values, heritage & history in climate adaptation; science-policy-society interfaces; and examining diverging and converging perspectives (framing, narratives, discourses, visualisations) of actors in how they experience climate change and imagine the climate-resilient urban future.
Selected Publications
- PhD thesis Wardekker, J.A. (2011). “Climate change impact assessment and adaptation under uncertainty”. PhD thesis. Promotores: Wim Turkenburg, Arthur Petersen, Jeroen van der Sluijs. Utrecht University, Utrecht.
Selected scientific papers
- Wardekker, J.A., A. de Jong, J.M. Knoop, J.P. van der Sluijs (2010). “Operationalising a resilience approach to adapting an urban delta to uncertain climate changes”. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 77 (6), 987-998.
- Ilgen, S., F. Sengers, A. Wardekker (2019). “City-to-city learning for urban resilience: The case of water squares in Rotterdam and Mexico City”. Water, 11 (5), 983. Wardekker, A. (2018). “Resilience principles as a tool for exploring options for urban resilience”. Solutions, 9 (1).
- Wardekker, A. (in press, expected 2019). “Framing ‘resilient cities’: System versus community focussed interpretations of urban climate resilience”. In: “Urban resilience: Methodologies, tools and evaluation”. Springer, Cham.
- De Boer, J., J.A. Wardekker, J.P. van der Sluijs (2010), “Frame-based guide to situated decision-making on climate change”. Global Environmental Change, 20 (3), 502-510.
- Runhaar, H., H. Mees, A. Wardekker, J. van der Sluijs, P. Driessen (2012). “Adaptation to climate change-related risks in Dutch urban areas: Stimuli and barriers”. Regional Environmental Change, 12 (4), 777-790.
- Bremer, S., A. Wardekker, S. Dessai, S. Sobolowski, R. Slaattelid, J. van der Sluijs (2019). “Toward a multi-faceted conception of co-production of climate services”. Climate Services, 13, 42-50.
- Wardekker, J.A., J.P. van der Sluijs, P.H.M. Janssen, P. Kloprogge, A.C. Petersen (2008). “Uncertainty communication in environmental assessments: Views from the Dutch science-policy interface”. Environmental Science & Policy, 11 (7), 627-641.
Full list of publications: https://sites.google.com/site/arjanwardekker/publications
Key associated research lenses: Adaptiveness & Reflexivity Anticipation & Imagination
Key associated contextual conditions: Transformations Diversity