Ruth McKay receives IRSG funding to study Dutch flood mitigation strategies

Associate Professor of Management Ruth McKay has received the maximum possible award under Carleton University’s International Research Seed Grant program for her project Flood Risk Business and Politics. This funding will allow Ruth to assess critical flood mitigation documents that are only available in the Netherlands, build new research collaborations with Dutch engineering and research organizations, and exchange knowledge about the ways two cities – Nijmegen in the Netherlands and Ottawa, Canada – approach climate adaptation.

Nijmegen’s Room for the River initiative will be a particular area of focus. This flood remediation project, which involved expropriation of property and relocation of fifty buildings among other measures, was able to proceed despite significant initial opposition from developers and private property owners. Ruth will examine how a consensus-building approach to conflict resolution allowed disparate stakeholders to agree on a course of action in Nijmegen and will consider how comparable approaches could be employed in multistakeholder relationships in Canadian contexts.