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INTRODUCTION

Natural hazards are unavoidable, but natural dis-asters are not. Generally, disasters come about

when communities’ coping mechanisms or capaci-ties are insufficient to effectively deal with the con-sequences of natural hazards. Therefore, disastersare not just physical or natural phenomena but ra-ther the result of human actions (Bankoff et al.,2004).

Adverse events of the recent past suggest achanging nature of (natural) disasters. The frequen-cy and severity of (natural) hazards seem to beincreasing and a mounting social vulnerability dueto such factors as urbanization, centralization andinterdependency and tight coupling of social andeconomic functions has become apparent too(COM, 2009:82). Although contested, predictionsregarding climate change suggest that these recentdevelopments, particularly those regarding the fre-quency and severity of natural disasters, will beintensified in the future due to climate change.

Trends that make more frequent and intense dis-asters possible in the future, makes one wonderabout the changing nature of disaster risks. If thesetrends persist, will we be facing catastrophic risks inthe future? Will “mega-crises” become part of ourfuture? Or is timely and proactive reflection on theimplications and dimensions of possible futuremega-crises possible? Can we ensure adequate fore-sight and capabilities to postpone the occurrence ofa mega-crisis?

The difficulty with these kinds of questions lies inthe peculiar nature of risks. Risks are always “some-thing unreal, related to random chance and possi-bility, with something that still has not happenedand is difficult to describe in advance” (Bankoff etal., 2004:47). This makes dealing with risks difficultas they are not to some extent imaginative and nottangible and communities often prefer to deal withthe last disaster rather than those that are likely tooccur in the future or those that are low probabilitybut (near) catastrophic events (Sutton, 2006:35). Tosome extent, it often seems that disaster prepared-ness documents are primarily established to ensurethe public that their communities are well preparedrather than ensuring limited damage and loss of life.

While on a global level fascinating but complexdevelopments become apparent, this chapter willfocus on one threat the Netherlands faces and has“fought” against for over centuries, namely coastalflooding. Dutch history and culture are tightly cou-pled to the fight against water; the fight againstflooding. It is still, however, one of the primary andsignificant threats the Dutch face. Recent Dutch riskanalyses have however identified the threat ofcoastal flooding as the threat with the potential ofinflicting the greatest adverse effects on theNetherlands in comparison to other threats. Sincethe current protective system was designed and putinto place, Dutch society and welfare have changeddrastically. Today most of the Dutch GDP is pro-duced in flood-prone areas and more than half ofthe Dutch population lives and works throughout

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Chapter 23

THE DUTCH DELTA: A MEGA-CRISIS WAITING TO HAPPEN?

KAREN ENGEL, BAS KOLEN, HERMAN VAN DER MOST, AND KEES VAN RUITEN

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these vulnerable areas. Due to land scarcitythroughout the Netherlands, the Dutch will contin-ue to build, live and work throughout areas that arehighly vulnerable to coastal flooding. In this light,coastal flooding is not just a relevant threat today,but will most certainly also be one if the future. It ishowever a low probability/ high impact risk; a kindof risk that communities and people find difficult tograsp and subsequently prepare for due to its high-ly theoretical and futuristic nature. This has thepotential of making the Netherlands increasinglyvulnerable to coastal flooding.

This chapter is aimed at attaining and examiningthe nature of the risk of coastal flooding in light ofthe concept “mega-crisis.” The changing nature ofnatural hazards and social vulnerabilities has leddiscussions to label possible future crises as mega-crisis throughout different kinds of dialogues anddebates. Through this chapter we want to explorewhether this term mega-crisis could be utilized torefer to future coastal flood events. Could we subse-quently see future coastal flooding in the Nether-lands as a mega-risk? In order to do this, we willfirst explore the concept of mega-crisis in paragraph2. In order to explore coastal flooding in theNetherlands in light of the concept mega-crisis wewill explore Dutch vulnerability to coastal floodingin paragraph 3 and 4 and Dutch coastal flood pre-paredness in 5 and 6. Paragraph 4 will provide thereader with a possible future scenario of coastalflooding. This will enable one to increasingly graspthe risk the Netherlands faces with respect to coastalflooding. Throughout paragraph 5 and 6 we pro-vide greater understanding of preparedness mea-sures or primary coping mechanisms that are or arenot in place. For example, we will look into the(im)possibility of evacuation from the most vulner-able areas, the possibility of insurance and riskawareness. Additionally, we will touch upon a num-ber of challenges that the Netherlands faces whentrying to effectively develop and implement com-prehensive disaster risk reduction measures. In par-agraph 7 we will reflect on our assessment of coastalflood disasters in the Netherlands from the mega-crisis perspective and see whether interventions arepossible to ensure that coastal flooding will notresult in mega-crisis, i.e., that coastal flooding as a

mega-crisis will be postponed as much as possible.We feel that the Dutch approach as well as the chal-lenges the Dutch face in light of potentially megacoastal flooding could be of great interest to the vastamount of countries dealing with the risk of majorflooding and the increasing vulnerabilities in lightof flooding.

Mega-Crisis: The Concept

Over the years the concept mega-crisis is increas-ingly used to accentuate the continuous develop-ment of increasing frequency and severity of natur-al disasters stimulated by climate change and grow-ing numbers of metropolitan agglomerations.Conceptionally, mega-crises, however, are rathernew and there is, right now, no commonly agreeddefinition or description. As this chapter sets out toevaluate the Dutch threat of coastal flooding (inlight of the concept mega-crisis), we therefore haveto therefore first set out to provide at least a prelim-inary operationalization of the concept and definebroad parameters that can provide us with a firstappreciation of coastal flooding in the Netherlands.In order to do this we’ll review the concepts “crisis”and “mega” separately so that we can establish thevalue of the combined concept.

The concept of “crisis” does not require muchevaluation as it has been defined and discussedextensively. The great array of conceptualizationsenabled us to utilize the conceptualization we findmost appropriate for our endeavor, namely: “a situ-ation in which basic structures or fundamental val-ues and norms of a social system are threatened,and which, due to limited time and a high degree ofuncertainty, requires critical decisions” (COT,2001:120).

Throughout the preparatory process of writingthis chapter, our discussions and literature reviewswould lead us to the very basic understanding of“mega” as something related to size or magnitude.We therefore decided to define and describe megathrough the use of the Merriam-Webster dictionarywhich underlines this idea as it describes the term“mega” as an adjective referring to either great andlarge or greatly surpassing others of its kind. A mega-cri-sis would subsequently be a crisis (a situation char-

The Dutch Delta: A Mega-Crisis Waiting to Happen? 321

acterized by basic structures or fundamental valuesand norms of a social system being threatened, andwhich, due to limited time and a high degree ofuncertainty, requires critical decisions) that greatlysurpasses others of its kind.Future coastal flooding in the Netherlands may

become a mega-crisis if it results in a crisis situationswithout any (Dutch) precedent. To determinewhether coastal flooding in the Netherlands can pre-sent a mega-crisis, we have to evaluate whether thedimensions of possible coastal flooding can be signif-icant (enough) and surpass others of its kind. Todetermine the possible dimensions of coastal flood-ing we will look at (1) Dutch vulnerability to coastalflooding and a possible scenarios of coastal floodingand (2) current coping mechanisms in place (mitiga-tion and preparation).

Vulnerability of Dutch Deltato Flooding: A Perpetual Struggle

Flood Protection in Historical Perspective

Due to its low elevation, The Netherlands is vul-nerable to flooding from the sea as well as fromrivers. Large rivers pass through the country, suchas the river Rhine. Living in the delta has alwaysrequired human intervention. Starting around 1000AD, dikes have been built to control the risk offlooding, often in response to a flood disaster. TheDutch history of human intervention in the delta isin fact a history of land reclamation and flood pro-tection. Huge areas of land were already reclaimedin the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries,thanks to technological and economic develop-ments. Land reclamation in the twenieth centurywas concentrated in the Lake IJssel area. This lakewas created in the 1930s with the construction ofthe Afsluitdijk in response to a major flood in 1916(Van de Ven, 2004).

In 1953 a major storm surge disaster struck theSouth Western Delta area and took the lives of some2000 people. The disaster had large economic con-sequences as well. The reaction of the people wasstraightforward: “This may never happen again.”

The governmental response was the establishmentof the Delta Committee. The Delta Committee de-signed and published the Delta Plan in 1960. Thisplan comprised a large set of engineering works toraise protection from the sea, known as the DeltaWorks. The Delta works considerably shortened thetotal length of the coastline and thus the length ofpotentially vulnerable coastal defenses.

The Delta committee also introduced a newapproach to determine the required level of protec-tion against flooding. On the basis of a cost-benefitanalysis, the Delta committee determined optimumlevels of protection, formulated as return period forthe design water level, for the various dike ringareas. Four different levels of standards were de-fined, taking into account the nature of the threat aswell as the values to be protected. The safety stan-dards range from 1/1,250 per year for the river dikerings in the east of the country to 1/10,000 per yearfor the coastal dike rings of North and SouthHolland. Figure 23-1 shows the safety standards forthe 53 dike rings of The Netherlands.

Recognition of the importance of flood protec-tion as a common good, led to the foundation ofwater boards as early as the thirteenth century.Water boards comprise the oldest form of (func-tional) democracy in the Netherlands. Given thishistory, flood protection is at the heart of Dutchsociety. It is a dominant feature of the Netherlands’past and future. The Dutch people have a large trustin the flood protection system. Polls also show thatthey are most proud on the achievements in thefield of water management and that there is a verylimited perception of the flood risk they face (Terp-stra, 2009).

Possible Coastal Flood Scenario

While the Dutch have fought the water and theDutch population trusts the engineered flood protec-tion system in place, coastal flooding is still possiblein the Netherlands. Throughout this paragraph wewill briefly elaborate on the dimensions of a possiblelarge scale coastal flooding scenario as failure of theDutch defense system that can result in numerousfatalities, the displacement of people and subsequent

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societal disruption, damage to the environment andcompromise economic development and underminethe economic activities of the Netherlands. Since1953 there has been no major flooding, this scenariois therefore theoretical and more varied scenarios arepossible. Furthermore, there are various scenarioswith different purposes. In the Netherlands two typesof scenarios are utilized: (1) scenarios for designingprotection schemes; and (2) worst credible scenariosutilized for emergency planning.

The worst credible floods provide flooding sce-narios that are still considered realistic or credibleby experts, which can be used for emergency plan-ning in addition to the design scenarios (Ten Brinke,2010). A worst credible flood exceeds the safetylevel with a hydraulic load that is a factor 10 higherthan the safety level, i.e., multiple breaches in many

different dike rings may occur (Kolen & Wouters,2007). These worst credible flood scenarios can beperceived as worst cases and reflect the idea of“thinking the unthinkable” (Clarke, 2006) whenplanning for emergencies. Several worst credibleflood scenarios have been described for floods fromthe North Sea (2), major lakes, (1) the major rivers(2) and the tidal area (1). This resulted in scenariosfor:

1. Southwest and central coast2. Wadden Sea coast3. Rhine and Meuse in The Netherlands4. Rhine (IJssel) with breaches in Germany5. Lower (tidal) river courses6. IJsselmeer lake district.

The projected worst credible flood for the west-ern coast (Fig. 23-2), which causes the flooding ofapproximately 10 percent (about 4,500 km2) of theNetherlands after more than one week, by far ex-ceeds the 2005 flooding of New Orleans after Hur-ricane Katrina, in terms of the extent of flooding,victims, casualties and damage (about 120 billionEuro, >10,000 casualties).

Flood Risk Management

In order to live with the perpetual flood (disaster)risk, the flood risk needs to be managed as effec-tively as possible. Throughout this paragraph wedefine flood risk management as the strategy andpractice aimed at “avoiding, lessen or transfer theadverse effects of [floods] through activities andmeasures for prevention, mitigation and prepared-ness”(UN ISDR, 2009:26). The Dutch approachtowards flood risk management is primarily charac-terized by prevention, but is moving towards morecomprehensiveness and includes more and moremitigation and flood preparedness.

Mitigation: Current Flood Protection System

Keeping the delta a safe place to live in requirespermanent vigilance. Maintaining and improvingthe flood protection system is a continuous, never-

Figure 23-1. Current safety standards by dike ringarea.


ending effort. That is why flood protection has beenembedded into the Dutch legal framework. In 1996the Flood Protection Act was designed and imple-mented. The Flood Protection Act defines:

• Safety standards per “dike ring” area (freq. ofexceeding of design water level)

• Responsibilities of parties involved• A 5-yearly safety assessment of all primary

flood defenses based on actual hydraulicloads.

• Improvements of guidelines for safety assess-ment and design of flood defenses

Considering the fact that flood risk managementis vital, the Flood Protection Act orders that hy-draulic boundary conditions, i.e., design water lev-els and wave heights, should be updated every fiveyears and that water defenses should be evaluatedfor these new conditions.

A recent evaluation of current flood risk policyunderlined the increasing risk of coastal floodingand the need to increasingly prepare for possibleflood scenarios in the field of emergency manage-ment (Ten Brinke et al., 2008). In addition, the re-

cent Delta Commission of 2008 recommended in-creasing the current safety levels and addressingwater safety policy through three layers (1) preven-tion, (2) spatial planning, and (3) emergency man-agement (Ministry of Transport, 2008).

OUTLOOK FOR THE 21ST CENTURY

The current standards were established some 50years ago and are in urgent need of actualization.The standards were based on optimization of eco-nomic costs and benefits. Casualty risks as such areno part of the current standards, although theserisks are generally considered the most importantimpact of flooding. This shortcoming of the currentstandards has been recognized and the Draft PolicyNote on Water Safety announces that the base forsetting standards will be broadened: The height ofnew standards will be the result of a political evaluationper dike ring area. Criteria for this evaluation will atleast include the economic efficiency of investments inwater safety (based on a societal cost benefit analysis) andthe potential number of casualties in case of a flood.Explicit consideration of casualty risks is new with-

Fig. 23-2. Worst credible flood for the western coast.

324 Mega-Crises

in water safety policy. Two dimensions of casualtyrisk are being considered: basic safety and societaldisruption. Basic safety is described by the individ-ual risk of becoming victim of a flood, whereas soci-etal disruption is represented by the probability ofdisasters with a large number of victims, also calledthe “group risk.” Based on these criteria new floodprotection standards are being developed and willbe proposed to Parliament in 2011.

In most western societies there is a growing aver-sion of risk, including those from natural hazards.Strategies are adopted which aim at a (further) re-duction of the probability of failure as well as theimpacts of failures. This trend is also present in theNetherlands. For example, the 2nd Delta Commit-tee in The Netherlands recommended in September2008 to raise the level of safety with a factor 10, andan increase in safety level to respond to the increasein the number of people and assets to be protected.

The trend of risk aversion, together with the ex-pected impacts of climate change, has also triggereda demand for more robust flood defense works.Dutch engineers and landscape architects have de-veloped the concept of Climate dikes or Delta dikes.Similar to the concept of super levees in Japan,these Delta dikes, thanks to their height, width orstructural reinforcements should be that strong, sothat uncontrolled flooding is practically excluded.The practical applicability of the concept, the ulti-mate mode of prevention, still needs evaluation. Inany case, the actual implementation of the conceptof Delta dikes on a nationwide scale may take sev-eral decades.

Prevention has always been the cornerstone ofthe Dutch strategy for flood risk management. Pre-vention, as explicitly expressed in the NationalWater Plan of 2009, will remain the top priority forthe future. Prevention efforts in this century willfocus on further strengthening of the flood protec-tion standards (raising and reinforcing embank-ments) as well as on the implementation of Deltadikes which would practically eliminate the risk ofuncontrolled flooding (Deltacommissie, 2008;Ministry of Transport, 2008; De Bruijn, 2010).

Dutch Coastal FloodDisaster Preparedness

With preparedness we refer to “the knowledgeand capacities developed by governments, profes-sional response and recovery organizations, com-munities and individual to effectively anticipate, re-spond to, and recover from, the impacts of likely,imminent or current flood events or conditions”(UN ISDR, 2009:21). With public perception werefer to the way citizens recognize flooding as a pos-sible threat.

The safety situation that has been created in theNetherland is curious. The Dutch risk managementapproach has been rather unbalanced—focusing verynarrowly on reducing the probability of the floodrisk equation (risk = probability x impact), i.e., onprevention. However, as efforts were directed atreducing the probability, little attention was paid atreducing or limiting impact. The sense of safety thatthis approach engendered led towards increasingdevelopment throughout inherently vulnerable anddangerous places. In the Netherlands over 9 millionlive in flood prone areas and around 65 percent ofthe Dutch GDP is produced throughout those samevulnerable areas. Furthermore, in the future vulner-able areas will most likely be developed even moreas land is scarce (Deltacommissie, 2008:51).

The risk of flooding is not perceived as urgentand/or requiring preparedness. (Coastal) Floodinghas become such an uncommon event that it is infact not perceived as a realistic threat that requiresworrying or special attention from professionals oth-er than engineers, water boards and the ministry oftransportation, public works and water manage-ment. Against this background and despite severalcampaigns, flood risk awareness is rather limitedand the intention to invest in preparedness for theevent the impossible does occur, is limited as well(Terpstra, 2009).

It has become increasingly apparent that the fo-cus on prevention in addition to the trust in the gov-ernment that they will in fact ensure coastal flood-ing will never happen again has left little room for


investments directed at ensuring preparedness andlimiting impact in case flooding does happen. Theresult is that flood preparedness in the Netherlandsis limited. Increasing preparedness has been kick-started by the Flood Management Taskforce in 2006,right after hurricane Katrina. Hurricane Katrinacommunicated to the world the effects vulnerabili-ties of engineered protective systems and limitedpreparedness could have. Thus for over two yearsthis taskforce, established by the Dutch govern-ment, directed their efforts at establishing greaterdisaster preparedness in light to flooding. Here weshould underline that many stakeholders feel thatsince 2008 efforts directed at maintaining and in-creasing flood preparedness have been very limit-ed. Although some progress has been made, somemajor interventions ensuring real preparedness isstill necessary (TMO, 2009). But the memories ofKatrina fade and trust is reestablished and thenecessity for flood preparedness is hardly recog-nized or acknowledged.

Looking at the current status of the Dutch pre-paredness a few elements are worth mentioning.The first is the established early warning systemcombined with procedures and experience thatcontribute to the understanding of warnings. Earlyrecognition and warning is central to a timely andeffective response. Then we have the emergencymanagement doctrine, structure and practice thatshould be ready to react in case coastal floodingwould occur. The other element is insurance. Mostcountries have flood insurance. The Netherlandsdoes not. What does this mean for the response andrecovery? Many countries have a horizontal evacu-ation strategy as a measure to reduce loss of life andsave movable goods that can be operationalized inorder to get as many people as possible to safegrounds (also called preventive evacuation). This isa measure that has also been looked at for theDutch context. Scenarios show that complete hori-zontal evacuation is not possible for several areas(Kolen, 2009). Will we have to look into other alter-native measures? While horizontal evacuation hasbeen looked at, other strategies such as verticalevacuation have not been systematically researchedand worked out as a plausible response option.

Lastly we will briefly touch upon the government/society relationship regarding coastal flooding. Dif-fuse assumptions and communication regardingflood risks and the necessity for preparedness in-hibits flood preparedness while in fact preparednessis required to prevent coastal flooding from becom-ing a mega-crisis.

Early Warning in Case of Coastal Flooding

Early warning is dependent on predictions madeby forecasting models and experts. The models useactual weather conditions and predictions to pro-vide decision-makers with forecasts regarding ex-pected water levels. Inherent to predictions, theforecasts include a certain margin of uncertainty(Barendrecht et al., 2005). When the (forecasted)water levels exceed predefined levels, alarms aretriggered and regular organizations have to decidewhether scaling up, establishing crisis organizationsand alerting and warning relevant actors is neces-sary. Two early warning approaches have been dis-tinguished and can be utilized (Ministry of Trans-port, 2008):

1. Bottom up, local, approach: in case of extreme waterlevels but no severe risk for flooding. When water levelsrise, the water boards are warned by flood forecast-ing centres for rivers, lakes and the sea so that theycan take measures to prevent flooding or reduce theconsequences. If necessary the water boards informsafety regions so that necessary measures such asevacuation can be taken. People are generallywarned at a local level. If necessary, local andregional organisations inform national organisa-tions. Since the 1993 and 1995 riverine flooding,various international warning systems are in place.The Dutch warning processes about water levelsinclude neighbouring countries especially when itcomes to riverine flooding.

2. Top-down, national, approach, as recently developedby the National Commission of Flooding: in case ofextreme water levels that cause a realistic immediate floodrisk. Due to the situation, a longer warning period ispreferred; this requires more sophisticated forecast-ing models that generate warnings further in ad-vance of the actual flood, potentially leading to

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greater uncertainty. After possible extreme waterlevels are detected, the national crisis organisationsand the water boards are warned. National crisiscentres establish their crisis management structuresand begin to coordinate and facilitate the regions.As this system has recently been developed, verylimited experience with its effectiveness is available.

The bottom-up approach for early warningmainly can be utilized when there is enough time totake precautionary measures by the responsiblewater boards and dike inspection teams. This ap-proach is therefore most appropriate for river areaswhere there is enough time starting from the warn-ing moment to take necessary preparative measures.Coastal areas, however, only have a few hours,maybe a day (Barendrecht, 2005).

A top-down approach might increase the avail-able time for precautionary measures and reducethe time needed to make agreements between or-ganisations. The bottom-up and top-down ap-proaches can work alongside each other, as shownin exercises such as “Waterproef” (Kolen, 2009).

Emergency ManagementSystem in The Netherlands

The emergency management system; the organi-zation and management of resources and responsi-bilities for addressing all aspects of emergencies(preparedness, response and initial recovery steps)in the Netherlands, is primarily directed at day-to-day (common) incidents. The question is subse-quently whether such a system will be able to dealwith large scale, possibly mega-flood disasters.

Dutch emergency management doctrine andstructure have largely been developed after the coldwar and are based on the idea that the emergencymanagement system should be able to address anycrisis situation independent of its cause and nature.This was drastically different to the system and phi-losophy that existed before the Cold War when theemergency management system was motivated by afear of war and natural hazards and thus designed tospecifically tackle those fears. When both the fear ofwar and the fear of natural hazards subsided and thefrequency of large scale incidents increased due to

industrialization, urbanization and the fast-growingpopulation, the Netherlands felt it was necessary toalter their approach to disaster management andincreasingly focus on the professional managementof “daily disasters” as this was perceived more press-ing. As a result the system was altered and the focusof emergency management became the managementof frequent events.

As the primary premises of the Dutch emergencysystem changed over time, so did the role andresponsibilities of actors involved. Central to thesechanges were the role of the municipality and of thelocal fire department. While the previous emer-gency management system was focused on largescale disasters with national dimensions and wastherefore characterized by national organizationssuch as the civil defense organization that later be-came the Corp Mobile Unit (leading ministry wasthe ministry of defense), the new developmentsshifted this predominant role to the local level. Themunicipality became responsible at an administra-tive level for safety and security and the fire depart-ment would become the operational core of theemergency management system (Concept memorievan toelichting op Wet Veiligheidsregio’s, 2006:2).The emergency management system had becomemore localized and the primary national authorityinvolved had become the Ministry of Interior andKingdom Relations. The Ministry of Defense would,however, continue to support the emergency ser-vices in case the civil capacity would prove insuffi-cient (Concept memorie van toelichting op WetVeiligheidsregio’s, 2006:2,3). Over time civil-mili-tary cooperation in times of disasters has beenextremely rare and the military functioned merelyas a safety net. In 2005, however, the Ministry of In-ternal Affairs, the Ministry of Justice and the Min-istry of Defense agreed to position the military onceagain in the emergency management structure.

Various acts such as the Fire Department Act, theDisaster Act and later also the Emergency MedicalService Act would enable this evolution of theemergency management system (BZK, 2003).

Today we see increasing regionalization (inter-municipal) or renewed centralization is becomingapparent. Emergency services are increasingly work-


ing together through safety regions. This develop-ment will become embedded in the law through thenew Safety Region Act (31 117 nr. 2: WetsvoorstelVeiligheidsregio’s; sent to parliament July 30, 2007)which has been proposed and is currently under re-view by the senate. This Act should ensure that co-operation is stimulated, codified and uniformed.Safety regions will deal with “daily” small scale inci-dents as well as large scale (low probability) crises/disasters. Also more and more municipalities opt towork together as they feel cooperation enhancestheir response to incidents, particularly for large(r)scale incidents.

The evolution and changes of the Dutch emer-gency management system creates a number ofchallenges in light of effective emergency manage-ment for coastal flooding. The first issue regards thelocal nature of the emergency management systemin the Netherlands. As the municipality is responsi-ble for safety and security, there is no coherent na-tional structure and doctrine for emergency man-agement throughout the Netherlands. Because floodsoften do not adhere to administrative borders, inter-municipal cooperation and interregional coopera-tion can become problematic as doctrine and struc-ture are diffuse and unknown to all partners. Thisincoherence and lack of national doctrine and struc-ture could result in organizational confusion andinconsistency when a fast and effective response isnecessary.

The lack of national doctrine and structure, par-ticularly with respect to coastal flooding, has beenrecognized and an attempt has been made to devel-op documents that enhance coherence and struc-ture also at a national level. While the developmentof these documents is a good first step, they requiremore attention and an increasing public and legalsupport base to become effective (V&W, 2008;Kolen, 2008; BZK, 2007).

Another issue that could prevent an effective re-sponse from coming about in case of flooding is thelack of focus on and experience with interregionaland possibly national disasters. The effective miti-gation of external risks and coastal flooding has leftthe Dutch emergency management system with lit-tle experience regarding interregional or national

disasters. The Dutch situation regarding a coastalflood response, could be compared with a high-school team playing their first soccer game at theworld cup. One of the questions this reality raises is:“is it possible to equip and enable an organizationto deal with mega-events if the organization neverexperiences incidents characterized by catastrophicdimensions?” (COT, 2009).

The question then arises: to what extent is it pos-sible and desirable to prepare a national crisis man-agement system to deal with an unlikely yet possi-ble catastrophic event, particularly when looking atthe costs that such an endeavor entails. While devel-oped countries often do not wish to communicatethat their government might not be able to effec-tively respond to a disaster, the Netherlands is awareof the fact that the impact of a coastal flood mightrequire international cooperation (Beerens, 2010).The fact that the Dutch emergency managementsystem is rather local and aimed at professionallyhandling more frequently occurring events possiblymakes it necessary to invest more in internationalcooperation, particularly when the dimensions of apossible scenario are great; mega. Furthermore, acoastal flooding will not just hit the Netherlands, butwill most likely also hit countries such as Belgiumand the UK. Therefore, to respond effectively tosuch an event might have to look beyond our bor-ders and acknowledge that an international ap-proach to crisis management has to be further ex-plored for (cost) effectiveness.

This year the Netherlands tested incoming foreignassistance as they acknowledge that a coastal flood-ing scenario such as the one they faced in 1953 willnot be able to be managed by the Netherlands alonebut that international cooperation would be a neces-sity (FloodEx.eu), particularly European coopera-tion. Just like such organizations as NATO or UN, itmight be necessary to look at the coming of great dis-asters and mega-crisis as an era in which increasingcooperation between nations is necessary to safe-guard communities from low probability but highconsequence events. While this would demand aninternational crisis management system, this wouldalso mean an increased international component ofthe current national crisis management system.

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Flood Insurance in the Netherlands

In most other countries there is a flood insurancearrangement and the flood victims can claim theirdamage after a flood. These insurance arrange-ments are all public- private partnerships, with onlyone exception. In the United Kingdom there is atradition that the flood cover is part of the contentinsurance policy. In the Netherlands this is, howev-er, not possible.

There are several reasons why flood damage ispart of a public-private partnership: First, flood pro-tection is a public good and paid by public funds.Private insurance expenses would depend on thedecisions with respect to these funds, and in thelong term it is uncertain how much money will bespent on maintenance of the flood defences. As aconsequence, moral hazard of the public authoritiesmay be possible, and less money will be spent onmaintenance than necessary.

Second, flood damage is related to events whichdo not happen every year. Therefore, there is oftena high cumulation of flood damage in one year. Inthe following table the difference is shown with fireevents. We assume that one fire will happen everyyear, and that the flood damages all houses.

From the example in the table it becomes clearthat insurance companies may become bankrupt ifthey do not provide for additional reinsurance ca-pacities. These additional reinsurance policies arein general relatively expensive, and the policy pre-miums will be relative high. Therefore, in all public-private partnerships the government is responsible

for the funds to pay the flood damage. In the UnitedStates, for example, the premiums are collected in afederal fund. If there is a flood, the flood damage ispaid to the policyholders using the available moneyin the fund. If there is not enough money availablein the fund (as was the case after the Katrina floodin 2005), the federal government will lend money tothe fund. In economic terms: the government sub-sidizes the flood insurance policies, and even withthis subsidy, there is not much willingness amongthe people who live in flood plain areas, to pay therisk premium.

In recent years there has been a “task force” (withmembers of the governmental ministries and theinsurance companies) to investigate whether a pub-lic-private partnership of insuring flood damagemight be attractive in the Netherlands. Until now, itis the practice that the government compensates theflood damage if there is a flood (four relatively smallfloods happened in the last 15 years). In the percep-tion of the public, paying a risk premium is equal toan increase of taxes. Until now, there is no agree-ment about a public-private partnership. The mainreason is that an insurance is not useful if there is amajor flood, because the insurance companies willonly compensate a small part of the damage. Themain part will have to be paid by the government.And then the question is: does the transaction costsof an insurance arrangement outweigh the benefitsof an insurance? The answer is, until now, negative:it is perceived that the transactions costs are higherthan the benefits of an insurance arrangement.

Table 23-1.

Fire Flood

Number of houses 1000 1000

Probability of fire/flood 1/1000 1/1000

Damage per house € 200.000 € 200.000

Risk per house € 200 € 200

Maximal damage per year € 200.000 € 200.000.000


Perspectives on Large Scale Evacuation

Evacuation is a possible measure that can betaken to minimize casualties in case of a threat or adisaster. Taking this measure can, however, have sig-nificant economic, political and social conse-quences, especially in case of a false alarm.

Throughout this chapter we define evacuation asthe organisation of and the movement to a (rela-tively) safe place in case of a threat. Different typesof evacuation can be distinguished (Kolen, 2011):

• Horizontal or Preventive Evacuation:Movement of people from an exposed area toa safe location outside threatened area beforethe disaster.

• Vertical Evacuation: several types of verticalevacuation can be identified. Vertical evacua-tion to specific shelters in the threatened area(the organisation and the movement to highand strong buildings inside the potentiallyexposed area before the start of the disaster ormoment of exposure), vertical evacuation to asafe haven (the organisation and the move-ment to elevated and dry area inside thepotentially exposed area before the start of thedisaster or moment of exposure), shelter inplace (the organisation and the movement toupper levels before the start of the disaster ormoment of exposure at the location of the dis-aster), etc.

After the onset of a disaster, other types of evac-uation are “Rescue” (when rescue services evacuateothers) and “Escape” (evacuation of individualswithout help from rescue services). An evacuationstrategy is a combination of different types of evac-uation.

Throughout the Netherlands there are only a fewregions that have evacuation strategies worked out.Those regions that do focus on evacuation particu-larly focus on horizontal evacuation even thoughhorizontal evacuation might in fact not be a realisticpossibility.

Resilience of a Society for Evacuation

In case of disturbances, a society has to reorganizenormal structures to attain effective crisis manage-ment structures and organizations. The behaviour ofcitizens and authorities will depend on their percep-tion of the threat, the consequences they perceive aswell as effectiveness and desirability of measures theythink they can take. People will act rationally(Helsloot, 2004; Perry, 2003; Quarantelli, 1999) andthey will behave on the basis of their own rationaldecision-making processes even though authoritiesmight perceive their actions as irrational. People willstart evacuating themselves or prepare their housefor a flood depending on the information they attainthrough various media such as internet, radio andtelevision, (nowadays more and more) social mediaand information of the authorities.

The spontaneous response of individuals canhowever have a (negative) impact on the public fa-cilities such as the capacity of infrastructure. Thiswas seen in Houston during Rita (DHS, 2006) orduring a traffic jam on a normal working day. It ispossible, however to implement measures in orderto adapt the environment at hand as to adjust topublic responses. Authorities can influence publicbehaviour through the provision of information,through risk and crisis communication and compre-hensive warning and alerting processes or the pro-vision of evacuation routes, such as the contra flowsystem in New Orleans (LA-DOTD, 2009) and Na-tional Traffic Management in the Netherlands(Wegh, 2008).

Preparing for the support of public responsessuch as mass evacuation requires the utilization ofassumptions and the development of probable sce-narios. Four parameters are important as a functionof time (after Gwynne, 2002) (1) behaviour of peo-ple (2) implemented decisions by authorities, (3)adaptive use of infrastructure, and (4) the threat.The result of an evacuation can be estimated by acomparison with the available time. By combiningthese four elements in a graph the relation between

330 Mega-Crises

these parameters becomes clear. The impact of aflood and possible impact of measures can be de-scribed. Therefore the relation between the amountof available time and the amount of necessary timefor a strategy is most important. With available timewe mean “the period between detection and recog-nition of a threat and before the onset of the disas-ter.” Necessary time on the other hand we define as“the period needed for decision-making about alter-natives and execution of a strategy (movement to adestination) for all evacuees and movable goods tothe selected destination (Barendregt et al., 2005) Forthe Netherlands, and especially the coastal area, it isclear that preventive evacuation cannot be done intime (Barendregt et al., 2005; Friso, 2008; Jonkman,2007) and other strategies for evacuation combinedwith support of self-reliance might result in less lossof life and damage (Kolen, 2009).

Expected Value of PreventiveEvacuation in the Netherlands

The expected value of preventive evacuation(Maaskant, 2009) in case of flooding for the Neth-erlands is determined by the Ministry of PublicWorks, Transportation and Water Management. Foreach dike ring the expected value of preventiveevacuation is shown in Table 23-2. It is shown thatnot everybody can be evacuated preventively/ hor-izontally. Often this is the result of the possibility ofunforeseen events or missed calls and people whorefuse to evacuate (estimated at 10% of the popula-tion). For areas affected by storm surge (coast andlakes) an additional factor preventing a large scalepreventive evacuation is that the required time (de-rived from available infrastructure, number of peo-ple and behaviour, decisions) is less than the avail-

Figure 23-3.


able time based on forecasts and early warning. Thenumber of people in coastal areas assumed not tobe evacuated is estimated around 20 percent be-cause signals of extreme water levels are not avail-able in river areas.

Spontaneous Evacuation

An evacuation can be initiated by the authorities,but can also be triggered by citizens’ direct responseto information in the media or other information. Aspontaneous evacuation is defined as an evacuationthat is initiated by citizen response without any ad-vice or evacuation order from the authorities. Aspontaneous evacuation can also result in an evacu-ation of nonthreatened areas, as took place in Hou-ston for Hurricane Rita (DHS, 2006). This processis called a shadow evacuation: a spontaneous evac-uation of an area that is not part of the threatenedarea that influences the total evacuation. It is impor-tant to note that spontaneous evacuation can inter-fere with planned evacuation, particularly when thecitizenry is not adequately informed.

Example of Evacuation Scenario

An evacuation strategy can be defined as all mea-sures taken to support people to move to the safestplace (outside the affected area, shelter in the area orin their own houses on upper floors) and maximizeself-reliance. The strategy needs to take into accountvarious elements such as communication, businesscontinuity, security, traffic management and thespeed of the wind (which will have an important rolethat might affect the entire country or at least a largepart of the country and cause damage and destruc-tion).

Figure 23-4 shows the Dutch coast divided inhigh and low areas threatened by a possible worstcredible flood. Even though a worst credible floodwill result in flooding of the western or the northernpart of the coast, the entire coast will be threatened.Uncertainties in weather systems and forecast mod-els are too large to define areas as “safe.”

Below two possible evacuations scenarios arepresented and related to the required time.

• A strategy aimed at preventive horizontalevacuation

• A strategy aimed at vertical evacuation com-

Table 23-2.

Area Expected value of preventive Expected value of people insideevacuation (% of total population the flood probe area (% of totalinside dike ring) population inside dike ring)

Friesland & Groningen 40 60

Noor- en Zuid-Holland 15 85

Zeeuwse en ZH eilanden 30 70

Zeeuws Vlaanderen 40 60

Meren 55 45

Rivieren Rijn 75 25

Rivieren Maas 75 25

Benedenrivierengebied 15 85

332 Mega-Crises

bined with support of self reliance (only notself-reliant people in the high threatened areasare evacuated preventively).

These scenarios are based on assumptions suchas the assumption that 20 percent of the populationdoes not participate in the strategy. The idea is that20 percent will not participate due to low riskawareness, limited flood societal flood preparednessand most important lack of experience. Researchhas shown that a lot of people are willing to followgovernmental instructions to evacuation horizontal-ly. It is interesting to note that it is particularly thosepeople that have experienced flooding in the pastthat are most willing to participate in governmentalevacuation strategies (NIPO, 2006).

In New Orleans, during Katrina, about 20 per-cent did not evacuate because of all kind of reasons(trust, negative experience last time, domestic ani-mals, health, lack of transport etc.) (Kok et al., 2007;Wolshon, 2006). After Katrina, with hurricane Gus-tav almost 95 percent (Cole, 2008) of the inhabi-tants evacuated as they were more aware of the riskand more prepared.

Another assumption used is that 10 percent ofthe population is not self-supporting and are (forexample) in hospitals, institutions, and prisons oreven at home (Ministry of the Interior and King-dom Relations, 2008). Furthermore, at the start ofthe evacuation, people are assumed to be in theirhomes, and roads are assumed to be empty. Theidea is that before the decision to start an evacua-tion, other measures, decisions and crisis communi-cations are taken, based on forecasts in accordancewith national and regional emergency planning.People who evacuate spontaneously are assumed tobe compensated by people who enter the area tosupport family and friends.

Each scenario uses a departure curve that definesthe moment when people leave their homes andtake part in the traffic (Van der Doef, 2006; Friso,2008). These curves take into account the timeneeded to respond and the influence of changinginformation in the response of the public. After 5hours, 20 percent of the people leave their home forpreventive evacuation; after 7 hours, 50 percent; 9hours, 80 percent; and after 15 hours, 99 percent ofthe group that evacuates preventively have left their

Figure 23-4. Threatened area.


homes. These departure curves are based on expe-rience in the United States and are appropriate (orbest available) for the Netherlands (Friso et al.,2008).

Four different forms of traffic management havebeen used, considering best and worst-case scenar-ios (van Zuilekom, 2005):

• Reference (a worst case scenario) no trafficcontrol

• Nearest exit (a worst case scenario) all evac-uees use the nearest exits

• Advanced traffic management (a best case sce-nario); optimal use of exits points

• National Concept Traffic Management(NCTM), Figure 23-5 (a best case scenario).This strategy uses the entire Dutch highwaysystem, and is predefined with regard to con-necting origin, route and destination (Holter-man et al., 2009).

The traffic module of the High Water Informa-tion System (HIS) was used to determine the timerequired for evacuation [21, 23]. Two different typesof calculations were made:

• Static runs: The number of evacuees in thearea, the distribution of departure (in time) ofevacuees, the road capacities and the network,the exit capacity and the effects of traffic man-agement. The parameters of the model werecalibrated using the macroscopic model [24].

• Dynamic (and time-consuming) runs for mostinteresting scenarios (macroscopic dynamicassignment model Madame). This model usesthe (local) characteristics of the road network

and takes into account the relations betweentravel speed, intensity, road capacity and thenumber of vehicles during the evacuation.

Results

The necessary evacuation time for coastal and riv-er areas is given in Table 23-2. For coastal areas, thearea of North and South Holland dominates therequired time. Other areas need less time for evacu-ation.

Detailed analysis shows some clear bottlenecksin the road network and the strategies inside theevacuation zone (or exposed area) but they also oc-cur outside this zone with regard to the outflow.

There are bottlenecks inside the exposed zone.After one day most traffic is gone. More to thesouth, a regional road running almost parallel theriver “Nieuwe Waterweg” becomes overloaded oneday after the start of the evacuation. People fromThe Hague and Westland are directed to use thisroad instead of other roads.

Bottlenecks in the road system outside the threat-ened area can have a negative impact on the successof preventive evacuation. A major bottleneck is theA12 near Gouda where the A12 (from The Hague)and the A20 (from Rotterdam) link up with the A12reducing the number of lanes from 4 to 3.

Challenges

For coastal areas it is realistic to assume that acomplete preventive horizontal evacuation is impos-sible after identification of a possible threat. Alterna-tive evacuation strategies such as vertical are requir-ed to enhance preparedness and an adequate response

Table 23-3.NUMBER OF PEOPLE IN EACH STRATEGY (x 1.000 PEOPLE)

Preventive Vertical evacuationevacuation and shelter in place

Maximum preventive evacuation 3.900 900

Minimum preventive evacuaton 1.200 3.600

334 Mega-Crises

in times of flooding. Improvements in preparationcan reduce the consequences in a specific scenario.Therefore, the level of preparation is a key factor whe-ther an event becomes a disaster or a mega-crisis.

The problems of preventive evacuation are mostpressing in the North Holland and South Hol-land provinces. Even with advanced traffic man-agement, optimal use of all exit points (notcounting the possibility of accidents and conflict-ing behaviour), more than 72 hours are requiredto complete a horizontal evacuation. Even if wejust focus on the preventive horizontal evacua-tion of nonself supporting people in the most vul-nerable areas and utilize advanced traffic man-agement evacuation would take 24 hours. Thenecessary time for evacuation increases dramati-

cally (three times longer) without advanced traf-fic management.In less populated areas, preventive evacuation ismore realistic. For example, an evacuation ofZeeland would require around 24 hours withadvanced traffic management (35 hours without).For river areas a total preventive evacuationseems to be possible because of the limitedamount of needed time (1–2 days) and the avail-able forecasts. Also we succeeded in a preventiveevacuation in 1995 although the area did notflood.

The decision-making process regarding evacua-tion is characterised by limited time, possible lifeand death situations, huge economic impact andincreasing uncertainty. This makes taking the deci-

Figure 23-5. National Concept Traffic Management.


sions difficult, but delaying a decision is in fact alsoa decision that can have a great adverse impact.

Effective planning can facilitate decision-making,but uncertainties should always be taken into ac-count in order to be effective for future events. Atthe end of the day evacuation planning should aimto maximise the use of the available means for dif-ferent possible future scenarios based on the avail-able infrastructure. Furthermore, it would be valu-able to enable methodologies and knowledge to

evaluate plans and investments regarding prepared-ness.

More research is needed to develop a frameworkcomprising several possible scenarios for evacua-tion and uncertainties. This framework could beused for preparative activities and bridge the gapbetween all multiple involved organizations and theDutch people. This could make Dutch society moreresilient after detection of a threat.

Table 23-4.REQUIRED TIME FOR TRANSPORTATION DURING SEVERAL

STRATEGIES OF EVACUATION FOR RIVER AND COASTAL AREAS

Reference Nearest exit Advanced NCTM

Static Dynamic Static Dynamic Static Dynamic Static Dynamic

Maximum preventive evacuation

Coast >72 >72 >72 71 >72 >72

River 34 >72 38 27 24 – –

Minimum preventive evacuation

Coast 56 >72 24 22 36 34

River 20 4 18 – –

Table 23-5.REQUIRED TIME FOR TRANSPORTATION DIFFERENTIATED ACCORDING TO COASTAL

AREAS IN RELATION TO EVACUATION STRATEGY AND FORM OF TRAFFIC MANAGEMENT

Nearest exit Advanced Advanced(static) (static) (dynamic)

Strategy max min max min max min

North Netherlands >72 38 33 21 36 18

Flevoland and surroundings 62 21 26 18 18 18

North and South Holland >72 >72 >72 24 71 22

Islands of Zealand and South Holland 55 18 23 18 27 18

Zeeuws Vlaanderen 40 18 22 18 18 18

336 Mega-Crises

The Myth of Irrational BehaviorBefore, During and After Crises

Throughout the Netherlands crisis managementis an official endeavor done by professional and of-ficial agencies responsible for effectively dealingwith incidents and disasters. While professionaliza-tion is good, it has engendered increasing distancebetween the formal crisis management structureand the community it is set-up for, particularly whenit comes to warning processes. This distance seemsto be engendered particularly due to an erroneousperception of formal crisis managers and plannersof the citizenry; communities, and the way they be-have. The prevalent idea is that people affected bycrises are either panicking and/or passive, or inca-pacitated victims. This idea is central to emergencymanagement planning and training. When first re-sponders train with professional actors, the actorsare instructed to be panicky and incapacitated vic-tims rather than worthy survivors with great poten-tial to support response efforts.

The area that is most affected by this erroneousperception of society, is the warning process. To pre-vent the Dutch people from panicking, warningprocesses are often initiated at a very late stage andtransparency of events is kept minimal. Furthermore,societal assets, possible partners from society are notincluded and taken into account in formal responseprocesses even though they might enhance the qual-ity and effectiveness of the response (COT, 2009).

People; inhabitants, are often perceived as deli-cate or frail, especially with respect to disasters, andresorting to animal-like, irrational and antisocialbehavior in times of crisis (COT, 2009). Also in theNetherlands there is often the idea that people can-not handle difficult situations and will most likelypanic and depend on the government to survive(Helsoot & Ruitenberg, 2004). During Katrinamedia reported mainly massive antisocial behaviorwhile studies have shown that prosocial behavior,much of it emergent, was by far the primary re-sponse (Rodriguez et al., 2006). When push comesto shove, people emerge and rise to the challengeduring disasters and it is even possible to say thatoften times throughout the immediate response to a

crisis, it is the government that is dependent on thepublic to save as many people as possible and limitthe damage (Trainor, 2008).

In times of crisis people are in effect not irra-tional. Each individual will make a rational decisionbased on the information and capabilities they per-ceive available. What is often forgotten, however, isthat these individually motivated considerations orwarning responses are in actuality part of social pro-cesses that are not bound to individuals but ratherto groups and families (Donner, 2007). Further-more, various studies have shown that warningprocesses are driven by a great array of factors vary-ing from age, language and culture to gender, lan-guage and economic realities of social units (Bruns-ma et al., 2007). These are all forces that influencepeople’s decisions and motivate people to act a cer-tain way. Many of these forces are social and in-volve interaction, communication, and collectivedefinition. Additionally, pre-existing social struc-tures and emergent behaviors play a role in shapingwarning response and evacuation behavior. It istherefore important throughout the preparativephase to take these realities into account if effectiveinterventions are desired. Warning processes should,for example, target groups and families rather thanindividuals and messages should be tailored to spe-cific subpopulations interests. Governmental inter-ventions should be directed at becoming part of thesocial processes that emerge before, during, andafter disasters (Trainor, 2008).

The idea that people will not act rationally andwill be dependent on the government during acoastal flood, seems to prevent the governmentfrom communicating to the public in a transparentand coherent manner. On the one hand the gov-ernment communicates they have everything undercontrol regarding water safety and there is no rea-son to worry about flooding. While on the otherhand the government communicates from time-to-time when they realize 100 percent safety cannot beguaranteed that the citizenry might have to take thenecessary measures to prepare themselves for thepossibility a flood does happen.

Furthermore, the government appears to preparefor a situation in which they will have to do all the


heavy lifting while the citizenry is helpless waitingto be saved. Therefore, the preparations are veryformal and mainly aimed at equipping the govern-mental or formal response. Aside from a few tips ofwhat to do during a flood, there is no continuousattention to educate and equip communities andindividuals effectively.

Coastal Flooding: A PotentialMega-Crisis? Yes, Indeed!But Is It a Problem or Not?

Throughout this chapter we have discussed mega-crises conceptually. We have defined the conceptsas a crisis event that would surpass, particularly insize/dimension of impact, events of the past. Thenwe evaluated the approach the Dutch have chosento deal with the risk of coastal flooding. We per-ceived a rather one-sided focus on prevention; onensuring that coastal flooding will never happenagain, even though engineering cannot decrease therisk to 0 and 100 percent safety cannot be guaran-teed. There will always be a residual risk. We alsodetermined that this approach has left little roomfor investments into governmental and societal pre-paredness, i.e., into measures enabling limitedimpact of coastal flooding, even though the currentstrategy has enabled and fostered increasing socioe-conomic development throughout the increasinglyflood-prone areas.

We would have to conclude that the flood riskmanagement strategy the Netherlands has em-ployed until now has not been comprehensive andvery one-sided. Generally, mitigation and prepar-edness measures have not been taken even thoughsocial and economic vulnerability has been allowedto drastically increase. Looking at the scenarios thatare currently in place and the potential impact thatexperts and professionals find credible, we wouldhave to conclude that coastal flooding can in fact bea mega-crisis. The size and dimensions of the eventcould be catastrophic.

The continuous social and economic develop-ment throughout the most vulnerable areas of theNetherlands, particularly in light of coastal flooding,has led to the reality that the effects of coastal flood-

ing could indeed exceed the effects of the Dutch1953 flood disaster and the 2005 flooding of NewOrleans after Hurricane Katrina, at least in terms offlooding, victims, casualties and damage. The possi-ble impact could be “mega” or greatly surpassing oth-ers of its kind and large scale coastal flooding willtherefore most likely be a mega-crisis.

In conclusion, while a coastal flood does nothave to cause a mega crisis, it can, depending on thesize of the threat and the current limited level ofpreparedness of the authorities and the public andthe limited the interaction between them.

So, Now What?

The threat that the Netherlands faces is one ofunknown proportions with the potential of being amega-crisis, particularly in light of climate change(UN, 2009), increasing urbanization, centralizationand concentration and interdependency and tightcoupling of social and economic functions. Possiblescenarios can be developed but how probable arethey and which will be the next crisis?

The question then is how one wants the nature ofthe risk to be? Is it desirable to limit the probabilitybut enhance possible impact? Or would accepting ahigher probability, but less impact through increas-ing preparedness be a better maybe even a morecost-effective approach.

In order to answer these questions, a society-wide discussion concerning water safety would bevaluable. For example, it could lead to the defini-tion of safety ambitions and values that are widelyaccepted and shared. Also, it would be helpful forthe Netherlands to increasingly look into interna-tional trends and experience regarding disaster re-duction strategies. Those strategies based on a widerange of knowledge, experience and expertise caninspire a more comprehensive approach to watersafety and facilitate the establishment of a moreresilient and adaptive society.

Internationally, effective disaster risk reductionstrategies are comprehensive strategies in whichprevention, mitigation and preparedness are em-bedded and which involve all relevant stakeholdersincluding organizations, communities and individu-

338 Mega-Crises

als. Preparedness is not perceived as a mere neces-sary characteristic of governmental institutions butrather as “the knowledge and capacities developedby governments, professional response and recov-ery organizations, communities and individuals toeffectively anticipate, respond to, and recover from,the impacts of likely, imminent or current floodevents or conditions” (UN ISDR, 2009:21).

Throughout the Netherlands the focus of coastalrisk management has been one dimensional, andpreparedness in the comprehensive sense as usedby the United Nations International Strategy forDisaster Reduction has hardly received any atten-tion. In our perception, this makes the Netherlandsvery vulnerable. Effective methods should entailthe inclusion of all relevant stakeholders, includingthose essentially affected and vulnerable, i.e., com-munities.

A primary difficulty lies in the fact that thedimensions and actual nature of the threat as well asthe response it requires are unknown and increas-ingly complex. Human interventions have changedthe risk of flooding and brought it to a level of com-plexity that prompts a largely theoretical under-standing with, for example, limited attention to thehuman factor, as real-life experience is often lack-ing. International experience teaches us that most ofthe lifesaving efforts right after a disaster are doneby local persons and communities that are directlyaffected. Strengthening local capacities to effective-ly respond to crisis, as well as a mega-crisis, situa-tions, both on a societal as well as a governmentallevel, i.e., resilience, would then be most recom-mendable as impact of possible adverse events canbe reduced. Yet at the same time, disasters charac-terized by mega-dimensions often imply the ex-haustion of local capacities. Therefore, the responsewill most likely have to be complemented by na-tional and most likely international human, organi-zational and material assets. In 2009, the Dutchgovernment recognized that international assistancein case of coastal flooding will most likely be neces-sary.

This entails another dilemma however, namelythe increasing complexity that arises when a greatarray of agents are involved. Then engagement andcommunication become central to the activity at

hand, resulting in lack of stability as the number ofconnections increases and control through pre-dictable rules dissipates. Such complexity in whichcause is intertwined with effect makes crisis man-agement much more challenging. Especially withrespect to disasters because the current systems inplace seem to be rule-based—based on the premisethat control and acting according to institutional-ized narratives is possible and leads to success. Sucha “linear” system will be inadequate to deal with thelevels of complexity associated with mega-crises,where the uncertainties and complexity dictate thesituation. Such situations demand a different man-agement approach based on identifying spaces anddrawing boundaries that allow actors to reduce rel-evant uncertainties and to act in ways that stimulateemergence and engagement. “Such interventionsare best if they take the form of simple actions thatorganically evolve into complex and hopefully de-sirable forms of behavior” (Snowden, 2005).

We acknowledge that establishing such forms ofmanagement is a challenge in itself. However, ef-forts directed at local, national and internationalpreparative endeavors can be inspired by it anddirected at establishing flexible practices that facili-tate space for the emergence of local and institu-tional initiative and engagement as well as improvi-sation and innovative approaches. One key issuehere seems to be the “innovation” of the way rele-vant social actors deal with each other to developnew, more adequate approaches to respond in caseof mega-crisis or unprecedentedly large adverseevents. To prepare for such events it might be use-ful to consider networking for innovation as an ap-proach (Engel, 1997:148). Through proactive net-working, stakeholders construct a dynamic socialcontext for joint learning, probing and resourcepooling among themselves and possibly even withothers to identify opportunities for action. Methodshave been developed to facilitate such processesthat combine awareness raising with the identifica-tion of specific opportunities and actors who can actupon these to “effectively remove particular impair-ments, or make use of the opportunities identified”(Engel, 1997:165). Taking a (social) innovation per-spective may be particularly useful to fosteringresilience and responsiveness in complex situations


as it understands innovation is human resource-based, a “process by which social actors create val-ue from knowledge” (Engel, 2009) through definingambitions and values, through joint reflection andby undertaking specific actions.

Against this background, joint preparative pro-cesses can be very useful as it allows one to test theplanned interventions, create innovations, and toget an idea of the possible effects eventual decisionscan have for the great array of threat scenarios.

Even though it will not give concrete answers toquestions of how it would turn out in reality, it doeshelp one understand the complexity of the situa-tion, define realistic ambitions and core values aswell as means to effectively intervene in pro ofemergence and innovation. While the issues identi-fied are in no way easy to tackle, preparing for riskreduction in the event of mega-crises does force usto face them and deal with it.

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ABSTRACT

Cereal grains constitute the most important partof our daily food—the staff of life since times

immemorial. However, the current situation of foodgrain production in the world is dangerously imbal-anced in both spatial and import-export terms,which is neither sufficiently comprehended nor seri-ously addressed by national governments. Theglobal food infrastructure is complex and nontrans-parent. Most countries were basically self-sufficientin food grain production in the first half of the twen-tieth century. Currently there are about 105 nations,including The Netherlands, which are permanentlydependent on imports to have enough basic foodfor their citizens and for livestock production. Onthe other hand, there are only 5 countries that pro-duce cereal grains significantly beyond their owninternal requirements: United States, France, Ar-gentina, Australia, and Canada. Significant foodreserves do not exist in the world. Severe droughtsin China, India, the United States, as well as otherhazards, are likely to cause severe global grain yieldreductions at some time in the future. Then theglobal demand for food imports will exceed the vol-ume of food grains available on the world market.Very steep price rises and food shortages may leadeven to large-scale famine. Financial reserves do notguarantee food grain imports and cannot prevent amega-food crisis. All the 105 countries requiringpermanent food grain imports are at risk, including

Middle Eastern nations such as Israel, Jordan, Iran,and Saudi Arabia. Therefore, contingency planningis needed to establish significant food grain reservesby governments and private sectors. The number offarmers is declining sharply in many countries. Na-tions should safeguard the farming sector, reservesufficient arable land and develop contingencyplanning to have the ability to shift local agriculturefrom flowers and nonessential products to basicfood grain production in future crises years.

Introduction and Historical Perspective

Food is a critical daily requirement in humansociety. The food chain is a critical infrastructure,which has become very complex and nontranspar-ent, comprising a multifaceted combination of agri-cultural production by family farms and corporateindustrial farms, food storage, transport, food pro-cessing, trade, imports and exports, private andgovernment enterprises, international policies, statepolicies and private sector strategies, small mer-chants, large multinational agri-corporations, shopsand supermarkets.

This chapter exposes the highly vulnerable andprecarious food situation in the world, which is of-ten not comprehended or seriously addressed bynational governments. The enormous variety offood products in the supermarkets, from all over theworld, gives a false sense of security. Most nationsare dependent on food grain imports, but only very

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Chapter 24

RISKS TO FOOD SECURITY:CONTINGENCY PLANNING FOR AGRI-MEGA-CRISES

HENDRIK J. BRUINS

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