Abstract
Sea level rise (SLR) is a serious consequence of climate change and can cause severe impacts which endanger landscape qualities. Yet, few landscape architecture studies focus on the integration of landscape quality and SLR adaptations. Therefore, the research aim is to generate effective principles which combine landscape quality and SLR adaptation to understand how SLR adaptation can sustain or enhance existing landscape qualities. The Research For Design approach identified current and future landscape qualities and bottlenecks. This resulted in goals to increase the water safety, to conserve tidal nature, and to reduce salinization and increase the freshwater availability. The Research Through Design approach consisted of designing and testing, being reiterated until a final design and four final principles were created. To conclude, these principles are the super dike, the tidal protection grid, the silt motor, and the new landward tidal nature. They are relevant due to the integration of SLR adaptation and landscape quality, the focus on different goals, the applicability for multiple fields of knowledge, and by the applicability to similar world-wide coastal locations. General findings are that the design was determined by: the substratum, the type of used measures, the spatial layout of the landscape, the land use, and the landscape identity. To conclude, studying local landscape qualities and bottlenecks is important when adapting to SLR. The next aspects need to be combined to enhance or sustain landscape qualities: relevant disciplines, technical design requirements and a thorough understanding of existing and future landscape qualities and bottlenecks. Such insights help to select types of measures, to determine the locations of measures, and to know which measures to combine. Altogether, this contributes to ensuring the landscape quality while adapting to SLR.
