Jan 6, 2024 at 5:02 am
The water is high in various places in the Netherlands. That is not the first time. “Our history is a series of small and large flood disasters.” What have we learned from that?
“It may sound crazy, but certainly compared to 1995, the situation is not that bad now,” says Herman Havekes of the Union of Water Boards. He has been working in the sector for many years and is also a professor at the University of Utrecht.
“Our country is in a bad place,” he says. “We are threatened by both the North Sea and the major rivers.” According to him, the Romans already wondered whether they should consider the Netherlands part of the sea or the land.
The battle against water has been around forever. “It was our past and it will be our future.” That is why it is important to continue learning from the past.
For example, the flood disaster in 1953 was an important learning point, but the situation in the 1990s is more similar to that of today.
Just like in recent weeks, the water levels in the rivers were very high in 1993 and especially 1995. In 1993, 8 percent of the province of Limburg was flooded and 12,000 people were evacuated. Things also became very exciting in 1995.
The 90s compared to today
Rijkswaterstaat: “Both the Maas and the Rhine now receive approximately half the amount of water compared to the 1990s. In principle, both rivers can handle twice as much water. For the Rhine it is now also partly meltwater. Really high water levels are caused by a combination of meltwater and rain.”
The Waaldijk was in danger of collapsing
In 1995, the Waaldijk near Ochten in Gelderland threatened to collapse. “That was very problematic and risky,” Havekes remembers. “If things had gone wrong, there would have been deaths.”
As a precaution, 250,000 people and a million animals were evacuated. Havekes flew over the Netherlands with a number of politicians to show the extent of the high water. “It really was a sea of water.”
The high water in the 1990s played an important role in improving Dutch water safety. For example, more than a thousand dikes have been improved rapidly since 1995. Nine hundred kilometers of this was completed within five years. “That took a lot of work,” Havekes remembers.
More space for the rivers
The Room for the River program was then started. The name of that program literally says what has happened: more space has been made for the river water. For example, by moving dikes inland, digging additional channels, deepening rivers or lowering floodplains.
“So you can say that we have not been sitting still since 1993 and 1995,” says General Director Erik Wagener of the Flood Protection Program. This is an alliance of 21 water boards and Rijkswaterstaat that ensures that the dikes remain strong.
“Less known, but probably even more important than Room for the River, is that the Flood Defenses Act was introduced in 1996,” says a spokesperson for Rijkswaterstaat. This law ensures that dikes are continuously improved. “It is a method unique in the world, and it is the cornerstone of our flood protection.”
With the opening of the Reevediep high-water channel, the river program was completed at the beginning of 2019. According to Wagener, the greatest opportunities have been taken.
Another program also started at the same time. “Major dike reinforcement programs have been underway since 2008 and 2009, because we realized that we not only need to lower water levels but also make dikes stronger.”
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Dike keepers inspect previously rejected dikes on Marken
Small rivers also cause major problems
A new critical situation followed in the summer of 2021: heavy precipitation, in combination with high water, caused flooding in Limburg. Instead of the major rivers such as the Rhine and Meuse, the regional Geul was flooded.
According to researchers, this was a situation that occurs once every hundred to thousand years. According to Professor Bas Jonkman of TU Delft, the damage was greater than that in the 1990s. It opened our eyes to the fact that even “small” rivers can cause major problems.
According to Havekes, the disasters and subsequent programs ensured that the situation was not worse, because a flooding of the Meuse was prevented. “Otherwise the problems would have been much greater.”
But the Geul did flood. “It has reminded us all that even the highest parts of the Netherlands can sometimes flood.”
A dike approach of ‘historical magnitude’
In the meantime, the dike reinforcement programs continue. Wagener’s organization is working on that. The reinforcement of two thousand kilometers of dike and four hundred ‘water retaining structures’ is planned until 2050. “That is really of historic proportions.” Eight hundred kilometers of dikes are currently being renovated.
According to Wagener, the Netherlands is internationally known as the safest delta in the world. “We have our affairs very well organized at the moment.” Havekes confirms that. Many people from abroad come to the Netherlands to see how we are doing here.
The experts are therefore not very concerned about the current high water levels. It may cause local nuisance, but they expect the dikes to hold up.
Always stay alert
Jonkman expects that it will yield lessons again. The combination of a lot of water in the rivers and the IJsselmeer, a high groundwater level and a lot of rain creates a unique situation. “These are not all very extreme events, but the coincidence of all those things is special.”
“You keep discovering things that need to be maintained or improved,” says Jonkman. Such as the spillway that collapsed in Maastricht, causing a rapid, causing a houseboat to become loose and damaging a bridge.
The fact that the situation is now reasonably under control does not mean that we can sit back and relax. The experts emphasize that the defense of the Netherlands is never ready. “You will always have to be alert in both low and high Netherlands, because the water wolf never sleeps,” says Havekes.
2024-01-06 04:02:00
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