NGT methodology for cross-border knowledge exchange: Literature review of the use of NGT and lessons learned from the Co-Adapt project

The impacts of climate change do not adhere to conventional governance boundaries. In addition, the local scope and capacity around climate change adaptation is significantly controlled by: (a) the sustenance and resources required in terms of funding, policy and legislation; and (b) the cross-border nature of climate change itself in which the its impacts and adaptation actions are not contained within local boundaries.
Many scholars point out that in complex planning situations, in terms of the decision-making process, participatory processes have clear advantage over ‘traditional’ processes. Water professionals (WPs) face the challenge of co-creating nature-based solutions (NbS) with the stakeholders within their own catchments. Besides the catchment co-creation, WPs also have the opportunity to deliberate and exchange knowledge with other WPs through cross-border cooperation projects such as the Co-Adapt Interreg 2 Seas project.
The Nominal Group Technique (NGT) is a structured decision-making technique widely used both in industry and academia as a tool to assist in planning and decision-making processes. We initially conducted a literature review on the use of NGT in its benefits and disadvantages in decision-making processes. Consequently we designed a series of online NGT workshops for WPs from Belgium, the Netherlands, France and the UK. These workshops were additionally complemented with pre-and post-questionnaires, as well as a multi-criteria analysis (MCA).
This paper focuses on learning through cross-border knowledge exchange between the WPs in the Co-Adapt project. The aim is: i) to see whether NGT can be used to strengthen and improve the learning process on climate change adaptation measures with Nature-based solutions and ii) list challenges WPs face when co-creating NbS in their catchments and how can they be solved using a cross-border approach.