Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) 1vrije Universiteit amsterdam

Atlantis in the Netherlands

Xander OlsthoornPeter van der Werff

Atlantis start meetingHamburg. 22-23 Jan 2003

Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) 2vrije Universiteit amsterdam

Elements of flood management in NL

Dike ring areas (units of flood safety management)

Endpoint of flood safety management: residual flood probability

National law says: flood safety may be different for each dike ring

Three probabilities: 1/10000, 1/4000, 1/1250

Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) 3vrije Universiteit amsterdam

Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) 4vrije Universiteit amsterdam

The flood safety discourse in NL

1 february 1953 flood disaster Impacts of climate change on flood safety widely

recognised Policy guideline: “living with nature” –or – “room

for rivers” (as opposed to heightening of dikes) Decision making seems to be driven by flood

events

Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) 5vrije Universiteit amsterdam

Atlantis assumptions

The WAIS melting takes 50 years. Linear? Melting will be discovered in 2025? Impacts are all over the world. Implications for our

scenarios?

Sea level rise will be observable, when detected it will be a high probability/high impact event.

Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) 6vrije Universiteit amsterdam

Zero order reactions of civil engineers

Heightening sea dikes is possible. Dunes? The problem is the rivers (Rhine/Meuse) Silting? Bottle neck river capacity lower Rhine (near the

city of Dordrecht)

A solution: pumping!. About 1000 MW (2 big power stations). Investments: 5 billion Euro. Capacity rated for Rhine peak flow.

Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) 7vrije Universiteit amsterdam

Projects to enhance flood safety at currently foreseen climate change (CPB, 2000)

Annual costs M€

Annual benefits M€

Damage at flood M€

Retention basins (Upper Rhine) 11 118Dike heightening (Upper Rhine) 23 118Moving river embankments/dikes (to widen river channel). Rijntakken

16 27 136

Coastal defences (at 110 cm sea level rise) 369 1739 480018Lower Rhine delta 152 908 1090

Atlantis assumptions:Order of magnitude costs at 5 meter (factor 25 higher) : 12,500 M€ Order of magnitude benefits (twice benefit above) : 6,000 M€Current BNP 400,000 M€

Only monetary benefits

Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) 8vrije Universiteit amsterdam

First assessment “saving the Netherlands”

Costs are of similar magnitude as benefits Costs are a few percent of BNP

Would there be support for such undertaking? Would the protection be trusted or would people

(& investors) leave? Could the construction industry keep up? How to deal with temporary un-safety? Many other