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Flood standards or risk analyses for polder management in the Netherlands
Author(s) -
Hoes Olivier,
Schuurmans Wytze
Publication year - 2006
Publication title -
irrigation and drainage
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.421
H-Index - 38
eISSN - 1531-0361
pISSN - 1531-0353
DOI - 10.1002/ird.249
Subject(s) - flood risk management , flood myth , political science , flooding (psychology) , water resource management , geography , welfare economics , humanities , environmental science , economics , philosophy , archaeology , psychology , psychotherapist
The government of the Netherlands has formulated an action programme to prepare the Dutch water systems for future changes like climate change, subsidence, and spatial developments, as these are expected to increase both frequency and damage of flood events. One of the commitments made was that all water agencies are obliged to test their regional surface water systems to new flood standards based on an acceptable probability of flooding. The question addressed in this paper is whether this type of flood standards is appropriate to ensure that cost‐efficient measures are taken. A case study is used to illustrate that applying the proposed standards can lead to inefficient measures, and that a better objective is to minimize flood risk, within acceptable cost. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.