Neo-Atlantis: The Netherlands under a 5-m sea level rise

Olsthoorn, Xander; Werff, Peter van der; Bouwer, Laurens M.; Huitema, D.

doi:10.1007/s10584-008-9423-z

Cited by 34 publications

(35 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…It is, therefore, questionable whether only raising dikes will be sufficient to cope with increasing flood risks, or whether additional adaptation measures should address new spatial planning policies that limit development in flood plains and new building codes that make houses less vulnerable to flooding (e.g. Aerts et al 2008a;Olsthoorn et al 2008;Klijn et al 2011). Investing in a variety of measures that lower both the probability and damage of floods may be more effective to increase resilience to climate change .…”

Section: Elevating Buildings As a Sustainable Long Run Water Managemementioning

confidence: 99%

Individual preferences for reducing flood risk to near zero through elevation

Botzen

Aerts

Bergh

2012

Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

130

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Climate change is expected to increase the frequency and intensity of natural disasters. Adaptation investments are required in order to limit the projected increase in natural disaster risks. Adaptation measures can reduce risk partially or completely eliminate risk. The literature on behavioural economics suggests that individuals rarely undertake measures that limit risk partially, while they may place a considerable value on measures that reduce risk to zero. This is studied for a case of adaptation to climate change and its effects on flood risk in the Netherlands. In particular, we examine whether households are willing to invest in elevating newly built structures when this is framed as eliminating flood risk. The results indicate that a majority of homeowners (52%) is willing to make a substantial investment of €10,000 to elevate a new house to a level that is safe to flooding. Differences between willingness to pay (WTP) for flood insurance and WTP for risk elimination through elevation indicate that individuals place a considerable value on the latter adaptation option. This study estimates that the "safety premium" which individuals place on risk elimination is approximately between €35 and €45 per month. The existence of a safety premium has Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change (2013)

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Section: Elevating Buildings As a Sustainable Long Run Water Managemementioning

confidence: 99%

Individual preferences for reducing flood risk to near zero through elevation

Botzen

Aerts

Bergh

2012

Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change

130

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“…In this paper, we attempt a first estimate of the global impacts of a WAIS collapse in an integrated analysis of dryland 2 loss, wetland loss, coastal protection, and human displacement. These results are then compared to the outcomes of the three detailed European case studies (Olsthoorn et al 2008;Lonsdale et al 2008;Poumadere et al 2008).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…On the other hand, a 5-m rise of sea level would have impacts that extend beyond the coastal zone, and alter the coastal zone in a dramatic manner. For instance, the analysis of Olsthoorn et al (2008) suggests that the harbour of Rotterdam (and by implication the harbours of Antwerp and Bremen) may be abandoned under a 5-m sea-level rise, which would radically change transport patterns in the whole of Western Europe. In contrast, a 1-m sea-level rise would increase costs in Rotterdam Harbour, but would not fundamentally affect its operations, and its competitors are similarly affected.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The method used also only considers exposure based on elevation. The second paper (Rijkswaterstaat 1986) is limited to the Netherlands; its methods are more advanced than those of Schneider and Chen (1980), and it concludes that the Netherlands could be maintained in the face of 5-m sea-level rise over 200 years (see Olsthoorn et al 2008). Note that there are numerous previous results for global impacts of sea-level rise up to a 1-m rise scenario (e.g., Hoozemans et al 1993;Fankhauser 1994;Nicholls 2004;Tol 2007;Nicholls and Tol 2006), and some national results for impacts up to a 2-m rise scenario (e.g., Titus et al 1991;Nicholls and Leatherman 1995a).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Global estimates of the impact of a collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet: an application of FUND

2008

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The threat of an abrupt and extreme rise in sea level is widely discussed in the media, but little understood in practise, especially the likely impacts of such a rise including a potential adaptation response. This paper explores for the first time the global impacts of extreme sea-level rise, triggered by a hypothetical collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS). As the potential contributions remain uncertain, a wide range of scenarios are explored: WAIS contributions to sea-level rise of between 0.5 and 5 m/century. Together with other business-as-usual sea-level contributions, in the worst case this gives an approximately 6-m rise of global-mean sea level from 2030 to 2130. Global exposure to extreme sea-level rise is significant: it is estimated that roughly 400 million people (or about 8% of global population) are threatened by a 5-m rise in sea level, just based on 1995 data. The coastal module within the Climate Framework for Uncertainty, Negotiation and Distribution (FUND) model is tuned with global data on coastal zone characteristics concerning population, land areas and land use, and then used for impact analysis under the extreme sea-level rise scenarios. The model considers the interaction of (dry)land loss, wetland loss, protection costs and human displacement, assuming perfect adaptation based on cost-benefit analysis. Unlike earlier analyses, response costs are represented in a non- linear manner, including a sensitivity analysis based on response costs. It is found that much of the world's coast would be abandoned given these extreme scenarios, although according to the global model, significant lengths of the world's coast are worth defending even in the most extreme case. This suggests that actual population displacement would be a small fraction of the potential population displacement, and is consistent with the present distribution of coastal population, which is heavily concentrated in specific areas. Hence, a partial defence can protect most of the world's coastal population. However, protection costs rise substantially diverting large amounts of investment from other sectors, and large areas of (dry)land and coastal wetlands are still predicted to be lost. Detailed case studies of the WAIS collapse in the Netherlands, Thames Estuary and the Rhone delta suggest greater abandonment than shown by the global model, probably because the model assumes perfect implementation of coastal protection and does not account for negative feedbacks when implementation is imperfect. The significant impacts found in the global model together with the potential for greater impacts as found in the detailed case studies shows that the response to abrupt sea-level rise is worthy of further research.Climatic Change (2008) 91:171-191 DOI 10.1007/s10584-008-9424-

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“…This is because mitigation would reduce the probability of catastrophes as well as non-catastrophic damages, whereas adaptation would reduce the damage due to catastrophes only. For more details about plausible responses (more exactly according to the cost and/or the political feasibility of adaptation as compared to emission reductions) to the threat of rapid sea-level rise, see Lonsdale et al (2008) for the Thames estuary, Poumadère et al (2008) for the Rhone delta, and Olsthoorn et al (2008) for the Rhine delta.…”

Section: This Study If An Environmental Policy Is Implemented At T*mentioning

confidence: 99%

Decision making under catastrophic risk and learning: the case of the possible collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet

Guillerminet¹,

Tol

2008

Climatic Change

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A collapse of the West-Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) would cause a sea level rise of 5-6 m, perhaps even within 100 years, with catastrophic consequences. The probability of such a collapse is small but increasing with the rise of the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gas and the resulting climate change. This paper investigates how the potential collapse of the WAIS affects the optimal rate of greenhouse gas emission control. We design a decision and learning tree in which decision are made about emission reduction at regular intervals: the decision makers (who act as social planners) have to decide whether to implement the environmental or not (keeping then the flexibility to act later). By investing in the environmental policy, they determine optimally the date of the optimal emission reduction. At the same time, they receive new information on the probability of a WAIS collapse and (2008) 91: [193][194][195][196][197][198][199][200][201][202][203][204][205][206][207][208][209] the severity of its impacts. The probability of a WAIS collapse is endogenous and contingent on greenhouse gas concentrations. We solve this optimisation problem by backward induction. We find that a potential WAIS collapse substantially bring the date of the optimal emission reduction forward and increases its amount if the probability is high enough (a probability of 1% per year for the worst case), if the impacts are high enough (a worst case damage of 10% of GDP for a 3• C warming) or if the decision maker is risk averse enough (for example a social damage due to pollution equal to 1% GDP for an atmospheric temperature of 3• C). We also find that, as soon as a WAIS collapse is a foregone fact, emission reduction falls to free up resource to prepare for adapting to the inevitable. By contrast, adaptation (such as building dikes along the coast) postpones policy intervention because that strategy reduces the risk of catastrophic damages.

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Neo-Atlantis: The Netherlands under a 5-m sea level rise

Cited by 34 publications

References 11 publications

Individual preferences for reducing flood risk to near zero through elevation

Individual preferences for reducing flood risk to near zero through elevation

Global estimates of the impact of a collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet: an application of FUND

Decision making under catastrophic risk and learning: the case of the possible collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet

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