Implementing new flood protection standards: obstacles to adaptive management and how to overcome these

Abstract

Abstract. The Netherlands is updating its flood protection, whilst fully taking into account climate change and socioeconomic development. This WUDQVODWHV LQ µDQWLFLSDWRU\ VWDQGDUGV ¶ ZKLFK QHHG WR EH PHW LQ DQG ZKLFK DSSO\ IRU the then foreseen climate and economy. Whilst the government maintains to have adopted a policy of adaptive planning and management, the new standards are thus based on one IXWXUH VLWXDWLRQ ZKLFK TXDOLILHV DV D µhigh end VFHQDULR ¶ IURP D IORRG ULVN PDQDJHPHQW SHUVSHFWLYH The consequences of adopting these new standards are now becoming clear. It is expected that many hundreds of kilometres of primary flood defences need to be reinforced and/or raised, at an estimated investment of about 9-14 billion euros. The many uncertainties about actual future development, however, complicate the decision making about the implementation of individual reinforcement projects: should one aim at immediately meeting the new standard or gradually improve and grow towards it? In this paper we discuss the uncertain decision making context, show that lawfulness (working according to procedures, rules and regulations) and expediency (towards a purpose) may jeopardize the good intentions of adaptive management, and argue that optimization may not provide the most useful answer to this decision making problem.

Accounting for the uncertain effects of hydraulic interactions in optimising embankments heights: Proof of principle for the IJssel River

“…It represents the one that is least capable of retaining Pareto optimality and also the one that yields the least regret with respect to system‐wide best performance. In that sense, it qualifies as a ‘better safe than sorry’ solution (Klijn, Asselman, De Kruif, Bloemen, & Haasnoot, ). Figure b shows the distribution of regret to system‐wide best performance of the trade‐off solutions.…”

Improving flood resilience through governance strategies: Gauging the state of the art

“…In a European context, countries were shown to have different normative starting points as regards the desirability of specific flood risk management strategies (Bubeck et al, 2017; Hegger et al, 2016; Thaler et al, 2019). A prime example is that England has a long legacy of combining all different types of flood risk management strategies, whereas the Netherlands and Poland both focus strongly on flood defense (Hegger et al, 2016; Klijn et al, 2016). Also in the United States (Consoer & Milman, 2018; Trogrlić et al, 2018) and Scotland (Waylen et al, 2018) it was found that local physical and institutional characteristics, reinforced by higher level regulations, favor specific measures.…”

Cross-sector collaboration within Dutch flood risk governance: historical analysis of external triggers

“…After years of research and planning, the Dutch government has introduced new safety standards for primary flood defence systems (Jorissen & Kraaij, 2016;Klijn, Asselman, de Kruif, Bloemen, & Haasnoot, 2016;Ritzema & Van Loon-Steensma, 2017;Van Alphen, 2016). The new safety standards refer primarily to the flooding probabilities of polder areas, implying the possible failure of multiple flood defence/dike systems (Van Alphen, 2016).…”

“…The new safety standards refer primarily to the flooding probabilities of polder areas, implying the possible failure of multiple flood defence/dike systems (Van Alphen, 2016). Since the acceptable probability of a dike system's structural failure is tuned to the strictest scenario of climate change and socio-economic development in the Netherlands (Klijn et al, 2016), it is expected that more than 50% of the primary flood defences have to be reinforced or raised to meet the new safety standards (Jorissen & Kraaij, 2016). The new Dutch Flood Protection Programme has been launched to accomplish this task (Delta Programme 2017).…”

“…However, the government tends to allocate time and funding for the exploratory stages of dike reinforcement projects to cooperate with multiple interested sectors, and to identify and integrate these linking opportunities (Jorissen & Kraaij, 2016;Seijger et al, 2018). Therefore, the new Dutch Flood Protection Programme policy framework provides guidance for cross-sector collaboration and smart combinations, but only under voluntary application (Klijn et al, 2016).…”