Economic optimization of flood prevention systems in the Netherlands

Abstract

After the flood disaster of 1953, the Netherlands adopted a rational approach to flood risk management with the use of protection standards determined by means of costbenefit analysis. Due to scientific and political developments that have recently taken place, an update of the Dutch protection standards is being undertaken. One of the major priorities considered, is the need to address three issues, namely: (1) expressing the protection standards as failure probabilities of the flood defences, i.e. probabilities of breaching, instead of exceedance frequencies of water levels that is currently the case, (2) taking into account a spatial variability of those failure probabilities, and (3) considering various flooding scenarios. These aspects have been comprehensively addressed within a national flood risk analysis project, and partly considered in a numerical cost-benefit analysis approach, developed for the determination of new protection standards in the Netherlands. This paper presents an analytical economic optimization approach that makes an explicit link with all results of the national flood risk analysis project. In particular, an approach is outlined for the approximation of economically optimal design values of the failure probabilities along dyke-ring segments, which are treated as a series system of flood defences. The approach can assist in the determination of new protection standards in the Netherlands, but also in the design of flood prevention systems elsewhere.

Managing uncertainty in design flood magnitude: Flexible protection strategies versus safety factors

“…The cost of exceedance or failure of the flood protection system is not considered as part of the optimisation. While this corresponds to current practice in many countries, its application leads to suboptimal flood protection (Hutter & Schanze, ; Merz, Hall, Disse, & Schumann, ; Nillesen & Kok, ; Tsimopoulou, Kok, & Vrijling, ; Vrijling, Schweckendiek, & Kanning, ). Ideally, decisions should be risk‐based, that is, found by an optimisation of costs versus risks.…”

Preface: climate change proof flood risk management

“…It also introduces the other papers and explains how they relate to the conceptual framework; therefore, we shall abstain from elaborating on the individual contributions in this foreword. Consecutive papers focus on specific flood risk management-related subjects, namely on the reliability of risk assessments (De Moel et al 2015) which is a prerequisite for decision making, and on methods for riskbased standard setting for flood protection instead of using design floods plus some extra leeboard (Tsimopoulou et al 2015). The next two papers address the question how much flood protection can be achieved by deploying nature-based measures, respectively sand nourishments to the exposed sandy coast (Keijsers et al 2015) and promoting the development of saltmarshes in more sheltered coastal environments (Van Loon-Steensma, 2015).…”

Multicriterial analysis used for the optimisation of dike system management

“…For the appropriate design and management of levee systems their optimisation is advisable (Hui, 2014). In the levee design, the optimisation (van Vuren et al, 2016) may concern overall levee layout, technical issues such as levee height (crest elevation), revetments (Pilarczyk, 1998), seepage conditions, economic and environmental factors (Tsimopoulou et al, 2015). At optimisation, various approaches may be applied, such as game theory and risk-based analysis (Hui et al, 2015(Hui et al, , 2016.…”