The production of dormant eggs is a crucial adaptation for African killifish of the genus Nothobranchius to survive in temporary waters. These habitats are often characterized by unpredictable variation in the suitability of growing seasons as a result of variable lengths of inundations and temporary colonization by piscivorous fish. Incomplete hatching could enable killifish to buffer against reproductive failure during unsuitable inundations. Although this phenomenon has been tentatively linked to variation in dormancy states, it has never been investigated under controlled conditions and its viability as a bet hedging strategy to distribute offspring over several inundations remains unclear. In the present study, we used common garden experiments to assess the contribution of environmental modulation and bet hedging to delayed hatching in Nothobranchius killifish by testing the feasibility of arrested development in the presence and absence of environmental cues. Overall, the results confirmed that the presence of cues signalling a threat (predator kairomones) inhibited hatching. However, delayed development also occurred independent of cues and was regulated at two stages. Developmental arrest in energy‐efficient dormancy stages could present a means for long‐term bet hedging over years, whereas arrest in the energy‐consuming final stage may serve a similar purpose over shorter time scales. © 2015 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2015, 114, 941–948.

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o o d ri s k ma n a g e me n t i n Fl a n d e r s : p a s t d ev e l o p me n t s a n d f u t u r e c h a l l e n g e s . Wa t e r R e s o u r c e s M a n a g e m e n t , 2 7 ( 1 0 ) : 3 5 8 5 -3 6 0 6 . FLOOD RISK MANAGEMENT IN FLANDERS:PAST DEVELOPMENTS AND FUTURE CHALLENGES AbstractThis paper presents the state of the art of flood risk management in Flanders, a low-lying region in the northern part of Belgium which is vulnerable to flooding. Possible flood hazard sources are not only the many rivers which pass through the Flemish inland, but also the North Sea, which is sensitive to the predicted sea level rise and which can affect large parts of the Flemish coastal area. Due to the expected increase in flood risks in the 21 st century, the Flemish government has changed its flood management strategy from a flood control approach to a risk-based approach. Instead of focusing on protection against a certain water level, the objective now is to assure protection against the consequences of a flood, while considering its probability.In the first part, attention is given to the reasoning and functioning of the risk-based approach. Recent improvements to the approach are discussed, as well as the GIS-implementation of the entire model. The functioning of the approach is subsequently demonstrated in two case studies. The second part of the paper discusses future challenges for the flood risk management in Flanders. The driving force behind these challenges is the European Directive on the assessment and management of flood risks, which entered into force in 2007. The Flemish implementation of the directive is discussed and situated in the European landscape. Finally, attention is given to the communication of flood risks to the general public, since the "availability" of flood risk management plans is among the requirements of the EU Floods Directive.

In the past decades, Flanders, a region of north Belgium that extends from the coastline inland (in northwest Europe), has suffered several serious riverine floods that caused substantial property damage. As Flanders is one of the most densely populated regions in the world, a solid water management policy is needed in order to mitigate the effects of this type of calamity. In the past, Flemish water managers chose to drain off river water as quickly as possible by heightening the dikes along the rivers. However, this method leads to a higher flood probability further downstream. Moreover, water defence infrastructure can always suffer from technical failures (e.g., breaching) creating even more damage than would have occurred if no defences were in place. In a search for a better solution to this recurring problem, the Flemish administration proposed a new approach in the 1990s. This approach focuses on minimizing the consequences of flooding instead of attempting to prevent floods. To implement this approach, large amounts of data were gathered for the Flemish Region. Using a Geographic Information System (GIS), a risk-based methodology was created to quantitatively assess flood risk based on hydrologic models, land use information and socio-economic data. Recently, this methodology was implemented in a specifically designed GIS-based flood risk assessment tool called LATIS. By estimating the potential damage and number of casualties during a flood event, LATIS offers the possibility to perform risk analysis quickly and effectively. This chapter presents a concise overview of LATIS' methodology and its implementation for flood risk management in Flanders.

Since coastal tourism is one of the fastest growing sectors of tourism industry, coastal areas have become increasingly vulnerable in case of flooding. While in recent years a number of different methods have been put forward to map coastal flood risks, the implications of tourism dynamics for the assessment of human casualties has remained largely overlooked in these models. This chapter examines to what extent the ignorance of (residential) coastal tourism may bias the calculations of human casualties. To this end, a case study has been conducted on the Belgian coast. Both the dynamic nature of coastal tourism and the behaviour of residential tourists in storm surge scenarios are considered. The results of this study show that including tourism dynamics in flood risk management is justified and appropriate, depending on the tourist attractiveness of the flood-prone area and its temporal fluctuations.