The rationales of resilience in English and Dutch flood risk policies

Abstract

We compared the governance of flood risk in England and the Netherlands, focusing on the general policies, instruments used and underlying principles. Both physical and political environments are important in explaining how countries evolved towards very different rationales of resilience. Answering questions as ‘who decides’, ‘who should act’ and ‘who is responsible and liable for flood damage’ systematically, results in a quite fundamental difference in what resilience means, and how this affects the governance regime. In the Netherlands, there is nationwide collective regime with a technocracy based on the merit of water expertise, legitimated by a social contract of government being responsible and the general public accepting and supporting this. In England there also is a technocracy, but this is part of a general-political and economic-rational decision-making process, with responsibilities spread over state, insurance companies, individuals and communities. The rationales are connected to specific conceptions of the public interest, leading to specific governance principles. In both countries, flood risk strategies are discussed in the light of climate change effects, but resilience strategies show more persistence, although combined with gradual adaptation of practices on lower scales, than great transformations.

Coproducing flood risk management through citizen involvement: insights from cross-country comparison in Europe

“…In turn, this has implications for how coproduction is established. In England, societal resilience is defined in terms of the capacity to absorb, recover, and adapt; thus, it is accepted that floods cannot be fully prevented (Wiering et al 2015). Correspondingly, a diverse set of strategies is delivered at multiple scales to address risk in a holistic way (Alexander et al 2016b).…”

“…In contrast, the Dutch conceptualization of resilience is closely aligned to the notion of resistance, i.e., flood prevention (Wiering et al 2015). This is translated in constitutional law to guarantee flood safety and the presence of statutory safety standards not evident in the other countries.…”

“…Instead, water engineers advocate collective defense infrastructure as the most cost-efficient flood risk measure (Kaufmann et al 2016). The main reasons for this are the country's hydrophysical context, which has led to high safety standards and the technical, organizational, and cultural path dependency resulting from past infrastructural investments (Wiering et al 2015).…”

The European Union approach to flood risk management and improving societal resilience: lessons from the implementation of the Floods Directive in six European countries

“…Our evaluation further builds on that of Keessen and van Rijswick (2012), who state that promoting resilience through the legal system requires finding a mode of rendering adaptive governance elements compatible with the requirements of the rule of law (Ebbesson 2010). Additionally, Wiering et al (2015) highlight the importance of considering existing governance approaches when evaluating whether a system is ultimately resilient, including prevailing social relations and political and social arguments about FRM. As such, from a policy implementation perspective, the FD and its policies http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol21/iss4/art50/ The river basin approach is one of the cornerstones of the Water Framework Directive and Floods Directive and should thus be reflected in flood risk management policies.…”

Effects of hydrological changes on cooperation in transnational catchments: the case of the Syr Darya

“…In the Netherlands a mixed system has developed with regard to the defence strategy, in which everyone in the 'dike ring area' is protected in the same way and up to the same level. Regional taxes are paid based on property value, which leads to higher costs for those who have more property (higher stake, higher payments) (Van Rijswick & Havekes, 2012;Wiering, Green, Van Rijswick, Priest, & Keessen, 2015). In addition to this regional system, large investments in new defences in the Netherlands are partly paid from general taxes; thus solidarity implies that costs are spread across all taxpayers.…”