The added value of system robustness analysis for flood risk management illustrated by a case on the IJssel River

Mens, Marjolein; Klijn, Frans

doi:10.5194/nhess-15-213-2015

Cited by 10 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…Prevention of flood impacts can be realized through spatial planning and adaptation of buildings, while preparedness can be improved by developing emergency plans and setting-up insurance schemes. As argued by Mens and Klijn (2015), resilient strategies will increase the robustness of a social-ecological system through preventing those impacts on the system from which recovery is extremely difficult without outside help.…”

Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilient flood risk strategies: institutional preconditions for implementation

Gersonius¹,

Buuren²,

Zethof³

et al. 2016

E&S

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ABSTRACT. There is a growing recognition of resilience enhancement as an additional objective for adaptation. This will typically involve enhancing the preparedness and capacity to respond to the impacts of climate change. Within flood risk practice, resilient strategies focus on reducing impacts from flooding through better prevention and preparedness. Such strategies will not only reduce existing risk levels, but could also make the social-ecological system more robust for extreme flood events. This is because they seek to prevent those impacts on the system from which recovery is extremely difficult without outside help. Besides that, resilient strategies increase the prospect for the realization of cobenefits, particularly when measures are selected within the spatial domain. Implementing resilient strategies, however, faces many difficulties, particularly in countries like the Netherlands and Poland where prevalent governance arrangements are aimed to facilitate resistant strategies, focusing exclusively on flood protection. We analyzed these implementation difficulties for the Island of Dordrecht, which is a front-runner case of resilient flood risk governance in the Netherlands. A theoretical framework based on relevant issues regarding governance arrangements was used to reflect on the identified gaps and barriers. Although all issues played a role in the case study, there seem to be no generic institutional design parameters that have to be applied for implementing resilient strategies. Even in the current institutional regime, it is possible to find ways of implementing a resilient strategy. The more general institutional precondition has to do with the political willingness to allow for collaboration and experimentation and to enable a more flexible use of current principles and rules.

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Section: Theoretical Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Resilient flood risk strategies: institutional preconditions for implementation

Gersonius¹,

Buuren²,

Zethof³

et al. 2016

E&S

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“…Our interpretation of the concept of robustness deviates slightly from that of Mens [10] et al [11,36] in the sense that it pertains to a river in its function of discharging water instead of to a flood risk system, defined as a geographic unit consisting of protected areas including the socio-economy in those areas as well as the infrastructure that provides flood protection (cf. [10]).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Room for Rivers: Risk Reduction by Enhancing the Flood Conveyance Capacity of The Netherlands’ Large Rivers

2018

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Abstract:The Netherlands has just finished implementing the Room for the Rivers program along the Rhine and Meuse Rivers in response to increasing river discharges. Recently, making more room for the river is, however, being challenged for future application because the flood defenses are assessed to be too weak and will need reinforcement anyway. To be able to decide on the most desirable policy for the remainder of the century, we require knowledge of all benefits and costs of individual interventions and strategic alternatives for flood mitigation. In this paper, we quantify some benefits of making more room for the rivers. We recognize and quantify two risk-reducing effects and provide results of analyses for the Rhine and Meuse Rivers in The Netherlands. Making room for rivers was originally advocated because it (1) reduces the consequences of flooding, as well as (2) reduces the probability of failure of the embankments. We have now quantified these effects allowing translation into risk reduction proper. Moreover, larger floodplain surface area may influence the relationship between discharge and flood level, which implies that rivers with widened floodplains are less sensitive to uncertainties about future river discharges. This does not reduce risk proper, but makes the river system more robust, as we shall argue in the discussion where we present risk reduction and robustness as complementary perspectives for assessing strategic alternatives for flood risk management.

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“…To understand how systems robustness analysis can aid in the management of drought risk systems, it was applied on a case: Rijnland polder areas (Mens and Klijn 2015;Mens et al this issue). A drought risk system is a geographical area that depends on one or more water resource for several functions (e.g., drinking water supply, industry, nature and agriculture).…”

Section: Case Rijnlandmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dealing with Uncertainties in Fresh Water Supply: Experiences in the Netherlands

Thissen

Kwakkel

Mens

et al. 2015

Water Resour Manage

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Developing fresh water supply strategies for the long term needs to take into account the fact that the future is deeply uncertain. Not only the extent of climate change and the extent and nature of its impacts are unknown, also socio-economic conditions may change in unpredictable ways, as well as social preferences. Often, it is not possible to find solid ground for estimating probabilities for the relevant range of imaginable possible future developments. Yet, some of these may have profound impacts and consequences for society which could be reduced by timely proactive adaptation. In response to these and similar challenges, various approaches, methods and techniques have been proposed and are being developed to specifically address long-term strategy development under so-called deep uncertainty. This paper, first, offers a brief overview of developments in the field of planning under (deep) uncertainty. Next, we illustrate application of three different approaches to fresh water provision planning under uncertainty in case studies in the Netherlands: a resilience approach, oriented to (re) designing fresh water systems in such a way that they will be less vulnerable, resp. will be able to recover easily from future disturbances; a robustness approach, oriented to Water Resour Manage (2017) 31:703-725

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The added value of system robustness analysis for flood risk management illustrated by a case on the IJssel River

Cited by 10 publications

References 19 publications

Resilient flood risk strategies: institutional preconditions for implementation

Resilient flood risk strategies: institutional preconditions for implementation

Room for Rivers: Risk Reduction by Enhancing the Flood Conveyance Capacity of The Netherlands’ Large Rivers

Dealing with Uncertainties in Fresh Water Supply: Experiences in the Netherlands

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