Understanding transboundary governance of climate adaptation: Enabling and constraining characteristics in the Netherlands and North Rhine Westphalia and the role of EU normative principles

Climate change will have various effects on river basin areas, for instance precipitation levels and temperature may change. Flood risks increase on one hand, but on the other hand droughts occur more frequently too. This will also result in ecological changes. These effects do not respect man made borders, so climate adaptation in itself is a transnational challenge. Climate adaptation initiatives and measures can be taken to reduce the vulnerability of natural and human systems against those climate change effects. Within the Rhine river basin, the Netherlands and North Rhine Westphalia are dealing with climate adaptation governance, both on the international and on the national level. The aim of this paper is to get a better understanding of the factors that stimulate or hamper this transboundary governance. It is expected that cross border cooperation can be explained by the level of congruence between policy arrangements. By applying the Policy Arrangement Approach, we compare the policy arrangements of the Netherlands and North Rhine Westphalia, in order to determine the level of congruence between both and to distinguish factors that enable or constrain transboundary governance on climate adaptation. Moreover, EU legislation could also influence individual policy arrangements, as well as cross border cooperation. Currently, no EU legislation exists that specifically relates to transboundary climate adaptation policy. However, the EU is indirectly concerned with this issue, for instance via normative principles embedded in Directives and policy papers, such as the EU Flood Directive. In this paper is asked to what extent those EU principles, such as river basin management and the solidarity principle, could possibly influence climate adaptation in North Rhine Westphalia, in the Netherlands and transboundary cooperation between those regions. The paper concludes with an overview of conditions that are required to enhance the chance of successful transboundary climate change adaptation.