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Adapting to Climate Change in Urban Water Management: Flood Management in the Rotterdam–Rijnmond Area

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Book cover Understanding and Managing Urban Water in Transition

Part of the book series: Global Issues in Water Policy ((GLOB,volume 15))

Abstract

Many large coastal cities are located in deltas, which makes them vulnerable to floods. In many cities flood damage has increased due to increases in population and assets, and this process is expected to continue. At the same time, climate change will cause floods to occur more often in many rivers and deltas due to higher discharges and sea level rise. These trends call for the development and implementation of new technologies and strategies in flood risk management. This call is also acknowledged in the Netherlands, a country that has a strong history of relying on structural measures. The city of Rotterdam includes many unembanked areas, large parts of which will be redeveloped in the near future. Current practice is to elevate all unembanked areas to a 1 in 4,000 years flood level. This is not only very costly, but also causes problems when an area is redeveloped in phases, or when existing buildings will remain as both cause unwanted elevation differences and differences in flood protection. Rotterdam is therefore looking for adaptive (non-structural) measures to decrease flood damage in these areas. Such measures are presently little used in the Netherlands. One key question is how these new measures fit in within current policies, laws, and regulations in Rotterdam. This chapter describes measures studied for a case study area in Rotterdam, gives an analysis of the policies, laws, and regulations relating to these measures, and examines the implications for urban flood management. Our research shows that, in principle, the rules do allow for implementation of adaptive measures. It is, however, problematic how these measures can be enforced, and this weakness can cause problems, e.g. when not all waterfront buildings are dry-proofed. Better communication of flood risks is recommended, as this will increase awareness and preparedness, which in turn might lead to a higher implementation rate of adaptive measures.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Dry-proofing: preventing flood water from entering a building by reinforcing walls, windows, and doors and making them impermeable.

  2. 2.

    Wet-proofing: flood water is allowed to flow into the building, but the building is built of materials that are not damaged by flood water and are easy to clean.

  3. 3.

    Flood probability only looks at the chance of water levels becoming higher than the embankments, thus causing a flood. Flood risk also takes the consequences of a flood into account (that is, flood risk = probability × consequences).

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Acknowledgments

This research was part of three research projects within the Knowledge for Climate project HSRR3.1: “Adaptive strategies for the unembanked area of Rotterdam”, “Theme 1: Water safety” and “Theme 7: Governance of adaptation to climate change”. We want to thank Knowledge for Climate for funding these projects. We want to thank our partners in these projects for fruitful cooperation, and Peter van Veelen in particular for organising the workshops. We also want to thank the anonymous reviewer for excellent comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Public Administration and Policy Group, Wageningen University, 8130, 6700EW, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    M. van Vliet

  2. Movares Nederland B.V., 2855, 3500 GW, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    M. van Vliet

  3. Institute for Environmental Studies, VU University – Faculty Earth and Life Sciences, C.J.H. Aerts De Boelenlaan 1087, 1081 HV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    J. C. J. H. Aerts

Authors
  1. M. van Vliet
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  2. J. C. J. H. Aerts
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Correspondence to M. van Vliet .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Australian Natl Univ, Crawford Sch of Public Policy, Bldg 132, Canberra, Aust Capital Terr, Australia

    Quentin Grafton

  2. Fellow, ANU Centre for European Studies, ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University, Canberra, Aust Capital Terr, Australia

    Katherine A. Daniell

  3. School of Economics, University of Queensland, Brisbane St Lucia, Queensland, Australia

    Céline Nauges

  4. Water Department, BRGM, French Geological Survey, Montpellier, France

    Jean-Daniel Rinaudo

  5. Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University, Canberra, Aust Capital Terr, Australia

    Noel Wai Wah Chan

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van Vliet, M., Aerts, J.C.J.H. (2015). Adapting to Climate Change in Urban Water Management: Flood Management in the Rotterdam–Rijnmond Area. In: Grafton, Q., Daniell, K., Nauges, C., Rinaudo, JD., Chan, N. (eds) Understanding and Managing Urban Water in Transition. Global Issues in Water Policy, vol 15. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9801-3_25

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