New, Risk-Based Standards for Flood Protection in the Netherlands (PAP014759)

Código

PAP014759

Autores

Herman van der Most, ilka Tánczos, Karin M. de Bruijn, D. Wagenaar

Tema

Floods in a changing climate

Resumo

The standards for flood protection in The Netherlands are being revised within theframework of the Delta Programme. The revision of standards includes a re-evaluation of the existingflood protection system. This flood protection system is based on so called dike rings, a set ofembankments, dunes and structures that form a closed ring. A risk approach is being adopted tostrengthen the coherence in the requirements on the flood or failure probability of various parts of theflood protection system.The new standards will better reflect the expected consequences in case of flooding due to a dike breach.This implies amongst other more differentiation in requirements on flood or failure probability of dikes andhydraulic structures (on a smaller scale than the existing rings). The height of the standards will be basedon the individual risk of becoming a victim of flooding (?basic safety?), the societal disruption due to largescale flooding and the economic efficiency of investments in flood protection. To support the developmentof new flood protection standards both an analysis of casualty risk and a cost benefit analysis have beencarried out.The paper addresses at first the principles guiding the development of new standards. Next it isdiscussed how these principles have been operationalized making use of the methods and data of thecasualty risk and cost benefit analyses. Different principles pose different requirements; the paperdescribes how these different requirements have been integrated to obtain the provisional standardsbeing presented in this paper. Finally, the paper provides an outlook into the implementation of new floodprotection standards.