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Meandering meuse: In search of an optimal combination of river widening and dike strengthening - leading to multiple gains
Published in Wim Uijttewaal, Mário J. Franca, Daniel Valero, Victor Chavarrias, Clàudia Ylla Arbós, Ralph Schielen, Alessandra Crosato, River Flow 2020, 2020
P.W.H.L. van den Brand, J.A.L.W. Tielen
Because in many cases the dike strengthening itself already requires large interventions, it seemed favorable to raise dikes in combination with strenghtening measures, and not with Room for the River measures. Focus, urgency and budget for flood prevention measures in The Netherlands on the national scale have thus shifted in the past few years from room for the river measures towards more dike reinforcements. However, regional authorities, united in the Meuse Delta and Rhine Delta steering groups, have been stressing the need to keep on working on the powerful combination of dike reinforcement and room for the river measures. With varying success: the proposal for a measure along the river Waal (the largest of the Rhine branches), the high water channel Varik-Heesselt was turned down in 2018 (La Vos et al, 2019), whereas other initiatives along the River Ijssel (River Climate Park IJssel Gate) and Meuse (Oeffelt) get strong support by both government and society and might be executed within the next few years. The project Meandering Meuse is one of the measures receiving strong support. A detailed design is expected to be finished in 2022 and implementation is expected to be finished before 2028. By increasing the room for rivers, there is more space for river dynamics of the river and potentially reducing the negative effects of flooding (Klijn et al., 2018) Moreover, more room for the river creates opportunities for integrated area development, in which various goals can be combined.
‘Going Dutch’ in flood risk management
Published in Edmund C. Penning-Rowsell, Matilda Becker, Flood Risk Management, 2019
More recently, ‘near misses’ of riverine flooding in 1993 and 1995 have led to the adoption of a more holistic approach (VanKoningsveld et al., 2008). This approach, called ‘Room for the River’, is a set of 39 measures implemented around 2015/16 to accommodate and work with flooding where possible, for instance through the widening and lowering of floodplains and providing areas for the temporary storage of water (Rijke et al., 2012). It is a unique programme through its emphasis on the ‘poldermodel’, with many measures being the result of extensive negotiations between actors as well as an interesting example of working with measures that aim to build ‘resilience’ (interviewee 4). As of 2010, the ‘Deltaprogramme’ forms the main Dutch policy for flood safety and freshwater supply, providing a further step into integrated water resources management.
The potential limitations on its basin decision-making processes of granting self-defence rights to Father Rhine
Published in Water International, 2019
Bettina Wilk, Dries L. T. Hegger, Carel Dieperink, Rakhyun E. Kim, Peter P. J. Driessen
Flood defence by means of dikes used to be the dominant flood risk management strategy in the Rhine basin. Since the eleventh century dikes have been erected along the Rhine and its tributaries to reduce flood risk. The near-floods in the mid-1990s in Germany and the Netherlands prompted more holistic flood risk management. Since increasing human encroachment and activities had put a strain on available water retention areas, more ‘room for the river’ was required (Froehlich-Schmitt, 2003; ICPR, 2005). This implies a fundamental change in mindsets towards the acceptance of floods as part of the natural hydrologic cycle, and letting the river expand naturally during floods. Based on this perspective, river dynamics instead of human land use has become the force that at least in theory structures spatial development (Buijse et al., 2002; ICPR, 2001, 2005).
Concepts and practices for transforming infrastructure from rigid to adaptable
Published in Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure, 2021
Erica J. Gilrein, Thomaz M. Carvalhaes, Samuel A. Markolf, Mikhail V. Chester, Braden R. Allenby, Margaret Garcia
Resilient stormwater infrastructure practices recognize that current risk-based stormwater and flooding management practices often exacerbate flooding issues in the long term (Di Baldassarre et al., 2009, 2013). Rather than pipes or levees, The Room for the River program in the Netherlands mitigates flood impacts by allowing the river to flood and retreating urban areas from the expanded flood zones (Rijke et al., 2014). This safe-to-fail system better manages unanticipated flood events by acknowledging the dynamics of river systems and that flood conditions may change over time to be outside the typically expected conditions.
Cross-sector collaboration within Dutch flood risk governance: historical analysis of external triggers
Published in International Journal of Water Resources Development, 2021
It was not until the 1990s, when the Dutch government fundamentally changed its traditional flood protection approach of dike reinforcement. High water levels in 1995 resulted in the evacuation of 250,000 people from river areas (Orr et al., 2007). The first reaction during the event was the securitization of the system, which resulted in minimizing the potential damage and improving the emergency systems (van Stokkom, Smits, & Leuven, 2005). The government also immediately adopted emergency legislation and initiated the Delta Plan for Large Rivers (Olsthoorn & Tol, 2001), determining the urgency for all river dikes to meet the safety standards. Dike alternatives delivering flood safety were also increasingly gaining attention. The high water in the rivers of 1995, along with projections of climate change, raised concern about the long-term flood safety afforded predominantly by higher dikes and improved infrastructure (Meijerink, 2005). The government introduced a new policy approach called Room for the River; its core idea was to reduce the probability of flooding by restoring the natural water storage capacity of river systems. Realizing water safety by providing more space for water was the main objective of the RfR policy and programme. The second objective was to improve spatial quality (Wiering & Arts, 2006). With the introduction of the RfR policy, water management and spatial planning became increasingly interdependent (Verkerk & van Buuren, 2013). Other issues discussed included multilayer water safety (van den Hurk, Mastenbroek, & Meijerink, 2014). The approach entailed a combination of preventive measures (Layer 1) to improve flood protection (dikes, dams and dunes, as well as creating more space for the rivers); spatial planning (Layer 2) to reduce the possible impact of flooding; and emergency management (Layer 3) to counteract the consequences of flooding (Jorissen & Kraaij, 2016; Ritzema & Van Loon-Steensma, 2017). The multilevel safety approach made explicit the connection between flood safety and spatial development (van den Hurk et al., 2014). The introduction of these new policy concepts has been referred to by many researchers as a paradigm shift (Ritzema & Van Loon-Steensma, 2017; van den Hurk et al., 2014; Ward, Pauw, van Buuren, & Marfai, 2017) towards more collaborative and integrated flood risk governance.