Biodiversity recovery following delta-wide measures for flood risk reduction

Straatsma, Menno; Bloecker, Alexandra; Lenders, H.J.R.; Leuven, R.S.E.W.; Kleinhans, Maarten G.

doi:10.1126/sciadv.1602762

Cited by 20 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…Finally, our study was limited to the effect of interventions with respect to water level lowering. We did not consider other indicators, such as economic, ecological or societal costs and benefits, as was done by Straatsma et al (2019) (albeit without addressing uncertainty). Multidisciplinary and multi-sectoral assessment of interventions including uncertainty is recommended to determine tradeoffs in river management.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One advantage computational models can bring to decision-making for river engineering is an assessment of the impact of the planned intervention on hydraulics, such as water levels, flow velocities and the morphodynamic response of the river bed. While hydraulic effects are not the only impact of interventions (see, for example, Straatsma et al, 2017, for effects on biodiversity), they are considered important: for the 39 interventions of the EUR 2.3 billion "Room for the River" programme in the Netherlands, the hydraulic effect as predicted by models was a precondition for any design "to be taken seriously at all" (Klijn et al, 2013). Mosselman (2018) reported that quantified, large uncertainty in flood water levels is sometimes played down when assessing effects, under the assumption that systematic errors cancel out when subtracting the intervention case from the reference case.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Uncertainty quantification of flood mitigation predictions and implications for interventions

Berends

Straatsma

Warmink

et al. 2019

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Reduction of water levels during river floods is key in preventing damage and loss of life. Computer models are used to design ways to achieve this and assist in the decision-making process. However, the predictions of computer models are inherently uncertain, and it is currently unknown to what extent that uncertainty affects predictions of the effect of flood mitigation strategies. In this study, we quantify the uncertainty of flood mitigation interventions on the Dutch River Waal, based on 39 different sources of uncertainty and 12 intervention designs. The aim of each intervention is to reduce flood water levels. Our objective is to investigate the uncertainty of model predictions of intervention effect and to explore relationships that may aid in decision-making. We identified the relative uncertainty, defined as the ratio between the confidence interval and the expected effect, as a useful metric to compare uncertainty between different interventions. Using this metric, we show that intervention effect uncertainty behaves like a traditional backwater curve with an approximately constant relative uncertainty value. In general, we observe that uncertainty scales with effect: high flood level decreases have high uncertainty, and, conversely, small effects are accompanied by small uncertainties. However, different interventions with the same expected effect do not necessarily have the same uncertainty. For example, our results show that the large-scale but relatively ineffective intervention of floodplain smoothing by removing vegetation has much higher uncertainty compared to alternative options. Finally, we show how a level of acceptable uncertainty can be defined and how this can affect the design of interventions. In general, we conclude that the uncertainty of model predictions is not large enough to invalidate model-based intervention design, nor small enough to neglect altogether. Instead, uncertainty information is valuable in the selection of alternative interventions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Uncertainty quantification of flood mitigation predictions and implications for interventions

Berends

Straatsma

Warmink

et al. 2019

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

Self Cite

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“…; Straatsma et al. ) and that of recent debate on the relation between the evolution of initially rootless land plants in the Palaeozoic and associated appearance of meandering and anastomosing rivers (Santos et al. ; Davies et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Living landscapes: Muddy and vegetated floodplain effects on fluvial pattern in an incised river

Kleinhans

Vries

Braat

et al. 2018

Earth Surf Processes Landf

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Cohesive floodplain sediment and vegetation are both thought to cause meandering river patterns. Our aims are to compare the isolated and combined effects of mud and vegetation on river planform and morphodynamics in the setting of intermediate‐sized valley rivers. We use a numerical model for century‐scale simulation of flow, sediment transport and morphology coupled with riparian vegetation settlement, growth and mortality as functions of species traits on which flow resistance depends. Mud fluxes were predicted by excess shear stress relations in combination with the active layer formulation. We found that valley‐flooding water levels increase with vegetation density, causing a higher braiding intensity rather than meandering tendency. The shear stress during floods carves channels through the muddy floodplain surface. Higher mud concentration, on the other hand, increases floodplain aggradation, reduces the overbank flow frequency and ultimately causes formation of a single‐thread channel. Vegetation causes mud to deposit closer to the river channel as a levee, showing that mud sedimentation and vegetation settling mutually enhance floodplain formation. However, mud and vegetation counteract in two ways. First, vegetation enhances floodplain accretion, which ultimately increases plant desiccation for high mud concentrations. Second, vegetation increases the tendency of periodic chute cutoffs in valleys. The chute cutoffs locally reset the landscape and create new windows of opportunity for the vegetation. Surprisingly, in systems with a high mud concentration this causes hysteretic loops of vegetation cover and delayed mud deposition. Ramifications for the interpretation of Palaeozoic fluvial facies are that even rootless vegetation, capturing cohesive mud closer to the river channel to form thicker floodplain on the point bar, can enhance the tendency to meander and, under high mud supply, form stable channels. However, meandering is more unlikely in narrower valley rivers with higher vegetation density. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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“…To the best of our knowledge, stakeholder sessions have not been repeated to assess their variation in outcomes because they are time-consuming. Alternatively, the variation in stakeholder processes could be modeled using game theory, or agent-based models, but this is still in its infancy: Samsura et al (2010) used game theory to extract the strategic decisions used by stakeholders, Strager and Rosenberger (2006) integrated GIS with stakeholders preferences in a spatial multicriteria analysis to identify high priority areas for land conservation, and Becu et al (2003) created an agent-based system of a catchment in northern Thailand, including farmers' individual decisions. They attributed the agents with the availability of water, land, cash, and labor force and focussed on decisions made by farmers, instead of including the preferences made by other stakeholders.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Towards multi-objective optimization of large-scale fluvial landscaping measures

Straatsma

Fliervoet

Kabout

et al. 2019

Nat. Hazards Earth Syst. Sci.

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Abstract. Adapting densely populated deltas to the combined impacts of climate change and socioeconomic developments presents a major challenge for their sustainable development in the 21st century. Decisions for the adaptations require an overview of cost and benefits and the number of stakeholders involved, which can be used in stakeholder discussions. Therefore, we quantified the trade-offs of common measures to compensate for an increase in discharge and sea level rise on the basis of relevant, but inexhaustive, quantitative variables. We modeled the largest delta distributary of the Rhine River with adaptation scenarios driven by (1) the choice of seven measures, (2) the areas owned by the two largest stakeholders (LS) versus all stakeholders (AS) based on a priori stakeholder preferences, and (3) the ecological or hydraulic design principle. We evaluated measures by their efficiency in flood hazard reduction, potential biodiversity, number of stakeholders as a proxy for governance complexity, and measure implementation cost. We found that only floodplain lowering over the whole study area can offset the altered hydrodynamic boundary conditions; for all other measures, additional dike raising is required. LS areas comprise low hanging fruits for water level lowering due to the governance simplicity and hydraulic efficiency. Natural management of meadows (AS), after roughness smoothing and floodplain lowering, represents the optimum combination between potential biodiversity and flood hazard lowering, as it combines a high potential biodiversity with a relatively low hydrodynamic roughness. With this concept, we step up to a multidisciplinary, quantitative multi-parametric, and multi-objective optimization and support the negotiations among stakeholders in the decision-making process.

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Biodiversity recovery following delta-wide measures for flood risk reduction

Abstract: We show that biodiversity recovery was successfully combined with flood risk reduction interventions at the river delta scale.

Cited by 20 publications

References 47 publications

Uncertainty quantification of flood mitigation predictions and implications for interventions

Uncertainty quantification of flood mitigation predictions and implications for interventions

Living landscapes: Muddy and vegetated floodplain effects on fluvial pattern in an incised river

Towards multi-objective optimization of large-scale fluvial landscaping measures

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