Presentation given during 20th International Symposium on Society and Resource Management (ISSRM), Hanover, Germany.

1. Towards a diversification of Flood
Risk Management Strategies in
Europe:
a reflection on meta-governance
challenges
Marloes Bakker
Dries Hegger
Peter Driessen
Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development,
Utrecht University, the Netherlands
June 10th
, 2014, Hannover
(ISSRM 2014)

2. STAR-FLOOD research project
“What are
appropriate and
resilient Flood
Risk Governance
Arrangements
(FRGAs) for
dealing with flood
risks in
vulnerable urban
regions?”
FRGAs

3. Five Flood Risk Strategies
embedded in Flood Risk
Governance Arrangements

4. Flood Risk
Governance in
The Netherlands
“God created man,
the Dutch created
the Netherlands”
Source: Landelijk Beheer Organisatie Risicokaart van het Interprovinciaal Overleg, CBS

5. Flood risk governance in the
Netherlands
- Department of Public Works: main water courses
- Water Boards (25): regional water bodies
- Government: habitability and safety behind defence
structures and within dike-protected areas
- Provinces: oversee state of primary flood defences
and produce flood hazard and flood risk maps
- Safety regions (25): crisis and emergency
management
- Municipalities: flood warning, developing +
practicing evacuation plans

6. Flood Risk Governance in the
Netherlands
1953 Storm surge has resulted in Delta Works

7. Flood Risk Governance in the
Netherlands
• 1993 and 1995 riverine (near) floods
• Room for the river projects

8. Delta Programme #2
•Protection to floods
•Fresh water supply
•Climate proofing the
Netherlands
•Invest €1.2 billion per
year until 2050

9. Prominent issues in the Delta
Program related to flooding
-Adaptive Delta Management & Tipping points (=decision
making under uncertainty, allowing for flexibility)
-Discussion on protection levels
- on what basis are they determined? How high should they
be? (currently 1/10000 for “de Randstad”; lower for other
areas e.g. 1/4000; 1/2000; 1/1250)
-Multi-layered safety (MLS) approach

10. MLS in the Netherlands
• First mentioned in 2009
• Risk-based approach
• Three layers
1. Flood risk prevention
2. Sustainable urban planning
3. Civil protection and crisis management
But: prevention should remain cornerstone

11. MLS: implementation
- In the framework of Delta Programme
- Most efforts in “New buildings and Restructuring”
sub-programme
- Prominent examples:
- Ijssel-Vecht delta
- Rotterdam
- Dordrecht
- Layer 3 (emergency): limited attention

12. MLS: lessons learned
- Lively debate wet vs dry
- One-sided focus at first
- “less money for dikes”
- Not clear: what is MLS about?
- Make distinction between different forms of
MLS

13. MLS + diversification of FRMSs
- Thinking in terms of risks
- Stimulates cooperation: bridging concept
- Or: new wine in old bottles?
- Who is responsible, who pays for what? What
measures are referred to?
- EU Floods Directive: flood maps

14. Success conditions for
broadening FRMSs
- Relevant knowledge
- Nature of water systems
- Consequences of flooding
- Area specific implementation
- Measures to facilitate cooperation

15. Concluding remarks
• Flooding has become a EU-policy issue
• Diversification of Flood Risk Management Strategies
asks for bridging concepts
• NL: Mulitlayered safety
• Research has to make clear if and under which
conditions diversification of FRMSs will be possible
• Coordination
• ...

16. THANK YOU FOR YOUR
ATTENTION!
Marloes Bakker
m.h.n.bakker@uu.nl