Learning and Action Alliances for the integration of flood risk management into urban planning: a new framework from empirical evidence from The Netherlands Sebastiaan van Herk a,b, *, Chris Zevenbergen a,c , Richard Ashley c , Jeroen Rijke a,c a Delft University of Technology, Stevinweg 1, Delft 2628 CN, The Netherlands b Bax & Willems Consulting Venturing, Roger de Lluria 120, Barcelona 08037, Spain c UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, P.O. Box 3015, DA Delft, The Netherlands 1. Introduction Urban floods are increasing worldwide and are likely to become even more damaging in future due to climate change (Munich, 2009). Increasingly it is recognised that the use of large infrastructure alone to combat this has the risk for technological lock-in and is likely to be less effective than integrated approaches to manage flood risk (Evans et al., 2004). Therefore a shift to an approach that comprises both structural and non-structural responses is going to be needed that also maximises multifunctional opportunities for land use. Amongst the non-structural responses, land use planning is considered as one of the more crucial components in managing flood risks (Wheater and Evans, 2009; White, 2010). An integrated approach to flood risk management set within urban planning processes is now seen as an effective way of minimising risk, although this has not always been recognised in practice and empirical guidance on its implementation is still lacking (e.g. DCLG, 2009; Carter et al., 2005). In certain countries, such as England, planning incorporating flood risk has become a mandatory requirement (since 2001) and takes a regional as well as a local perspective (DCLG, 2009). In the Netherlands the Dutch spatial planning procedure ‘Room for environmental science & policy xxx (2011) xxx–xxx article info Keywords: Complex decision-making Learning and Action Alliance Flood risk management Urban planning and development Transition Social learning Netherlands abstract Urban development and regeneration present windows of opportunity to reduce flood vulnerability that are often not taken advantage of. Collaborative planning is needed to integrate planning and flood risk management and can be achieved by a social learning framework: Learning and Action Alliance (LAA). This paper presents a new framework on how to organise a LAA to support collaborative planning. The framework is verified based on empirical evidence from 2 case studies in The Netherlands where LAAs supported the adoption of an integrated approach to flood risk management and urban development. More than 60 interviews reported that the LAA helped develop and applied relevant knowledge in 3 types of joint activities: system analysis; collaborative design; and governance. These supported demonstration projects through 3 threads by: establishing facts; creating images; and setting ambitions. This was done via 3 streams by: addressing problems; developing solutions; and influencing politics. The new framework has been demonstrated to provide an effective guide to the organisation of a LAA and provides a new analytical tool to assess the impact of LAAs. Other success factors for LAAs and the better integration of flood risk management into the planning process are considered. # 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author at: Delft University of Technology, Stevinweg 1, Delft 2628 CN, The Netherlands. Tel.: +34 619205291; fax: +34 934760477. E-mail addresses: s.vanherk@floodresiliencegroup.org, sebasherk@gmail.com (S. van Herk). ENVSCI-909; No. of Pages 12 Please cite this article in press as: van Herk, S., et al., Learning and Action Alliances for the integration of flood risk management into urban planning: a new framework from empirical evidence from The Netherlands. Environ. Sci. Policy (2011), doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2011.04.006 available at www.sciencedirect.com journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/envsci 1462-9011/$ – see front matter # 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.envsci.2011.04.006