Before the Deluge

A warmer world is coming. The Dutch want to make sure they are ready for it.
Article

By LEILA ABBOUD - Wall Street Journal

The Dutch are embarking on a decades-long plan to improve their flood-control system because they're afraid that rising sea levels from global warming will threaten their low-lying country.

The Journal Report
See the complete ECO:nomics report.The effort, which the government says could cost €1 billion ($1.27 billion) a year through 2100, would include massive, decades-long public works, such as raising dikes and reinforcing storm barriers. One proposal calls for improving the defenses of Rotterdam, Europe's largest container port, which could be submerged as sea levels rise. Another would dump millions of tons of sand off the North Sea coast over the course of a century to extend the shoreline out as much as a kilometer (0.62 mile), further shielding populated areas from floods.

In addition to massive infrastructure projects, the Netherlands is also bringing new technology to bear in its centuries-old battle against floods. For example, Dutch engineers and International Business Machines Corp. are testing a system of sensors that could eventually replace the army of volunteers that now fans out during storms to visually inspect the stability of the nation's dikes. IBM is also helping to build a software system that collects and analyzes weather, rainfall and water-level data, and uses the results to advise local governments and emergency responders about flood threats and evacuation plans.


Delta Works Foundation (www.deltaworks.org)
KEEPING THE SEA AT BAY Existing Dutch flood defenses include the Maeslant barrier
"We have the best system of flood protection in the world today, but we have to start preparing for the future," says Cees Veerman, a former agriculture minister who headed a recent government commission that recommended the overhaul of the nation's flood defenses. "Climate change and rising sea levels will affect our coastal defenses and our rivers," Mr. Veerman says. "We must take action now to ensure that our citizens are safe in the centuries to come."

The Dutch campaign is still in its early stages, and lawmakers still have to make important decisions such as how to ensure its long-term financing. But the initiative is likely to have an impact far beyond the shores of this Northern European country of 16 million residents. The Dutch are leaders in water management, and its engineers, dredging companies and consultants work in flood-prone areas around the world. Dutch engineers traveled to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to study why the levees broke, and have advised governments as far afield as Vietnam and Bangladesh.

Billions at Risk
Such expertise is likely to be in high demand as countries are forced to adapt to major changes brought by global warming. Climate scientists and policy makers are increasingly realizing that even if industrialized countries make deep greenhouse-gas emissions cuts in coming decades -- something that is far from assured -- the carbon dioxide already accumulated in the atmosphere means that temperatures are still going to increase enough to cause major problems in some parts of the world. Coastal areas like the Netherlands, heavily populated river deltas such as on the Ganges in India, and small island nations are especially vulnerable to rising sea levels. Some five billion people live in vulnerable river deltas and coastal areas, according to a United Nations study. Therefore, some economists and environmentalists are now advocating that countries focus more of their efforts on adapting to the consequences of climate change.

"It's already too late to avert some serious consequences," says Manish Bapna of the World Resources Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C. "We must learn to adapt to a warmer world."

This is a different strategy from that of the Kyoto Protocol, the international treaty to fight global warming. Signed by 183 countries, the treaty focuses on reducing carbon-dioxide emissions from factories and power plants as a way to slow rising temperatures. In the policy jargon, that approach is referred to as "mitigation," while the approach of preparing for the effects of climate change is called "adaptation."

The Dutch effort to modernize their flood-control system is an adaptation project on a grand scale.



Delta Works Foundation (www.deltaworks.org)
Massive gates pivot closed to protect Rotterdam and environs
Flood of 1953
It began in 2007, when the government commissioned a nine-member independent committee to give it advice on how to protect the Netherlands from flooding for the next century. This was the second time Holland had undertaken such a study: In 1953, after terrible floods in the country's southwest killed some 1,800 people and destroyed thousands of homes and farms, the Delta Commission was formed to make sure such a thing never happened again. The result of the commission's work was the Delta Works, a network of dams and enclosures that were built over a 30-year period to protect the south of the country.

The modern-day Delta Commission II asked 20 climate scientists to study the impact of rising temperatures on the Netherlands. All came back with the same troubling conclusion: Rising sea levels were unavoidable over the next century and beyond. "Every new analysis we got was worse than the one before," recalls Mr. Veerman, who headed the commission.

The situation is aggravated by the peculiar geography of the Netherlands, one-quarter of which lies below sea level. The country has a 220-mile-long coastline and is also a delta where the Rhine and Meuse rivers flow into the North Sea. Increasing temperatures from global warming would not only cause sea levels to rise, but also cause river levels to rise because of more runoff from melting glaciers and greater precipitation in the Alps. Since the excess water in the rivers can't flow into the sea when the sea level rises, the risks of flooding are "drastically increased" in large areas of the Netherlands, according to the commission's findings.



Delta Works Foundation (www.deltaworks.org)
The Hollandse Ijssel barrier
Some 60% of the population lives in the most vulnerable areas. And 65% of economic output is produced in the lowest part of the Netherlands, which is home to the largest city, Amsterdam, and the seat of government, The Hague.

Raising the Mark
The commission came to the conclusion that the country had to prepare for a sea-level rise of as much as 1.3 meters (more than 4 feet) by 2100 and from 2 to 4 meters by 2200. Previously, Dutch policy makers had been preparing for a sea level rise of around 80 centimeters by 2100.

Mr. Veerman and his team identified key areas that would be stressed by the forecast changes. Rotterdam, with its huge port, large population, and crucial role in the country's economy, posed particularly vexing problems. Not only would the inner old town be vulnerable to flooding, but the smooth functioning of the port would be impeded by rising water levels. Dealing with the changes "could hurt the port and impose big new fixed costs," says Mr. Veerman. "It will be very difficult, from a technical point of view, to figure out how to protect Rotterdam."

Some of the country's dams and storm barriers wouldn't be able to handle the higher levels of water, the commission found. The Enclosure Dike, which dams off the Zuider Zee, an inlet off the North Sea that has been turned into a massive freshwater lake that provides drinking water to Amsterdam and its environs, would need to be raised by 1.5 meters.

In its 60-page report to the government, the commission recommended 12 specific infrastructure projects. It also called for the passage of a law to create a Delta Fund of €1 billion a year to pay for the projects, to insulate the program from short-term budget and political constraints.



Delta Works Foundation (www.deltaworks.org)
These towers hold two doors nearly as long as a football field that can be raised and lowered
Delta Force
The reception to the report was mostly favorable. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende called it "thorough and inspiring" and said his government would present a proposed law this year. But one nightly newscast accused the commission of scaremongering to force the Dutch to accept an expensive public-works project.

Tracy Metz, a journalist who writes about architecture, landscape and design and was a member of the Delta Commission II, says it was to be expected that the commission would be accused of being "alarmist." "Our attitude was that we wanted to have an idea of what could happen and prepare for the worst-case scenario," she says.

The next step will be for the government to pass a law to fund the project and begin work on the large projects called for in the report. It will take decades, but Ms. Metz and her colleagues on the commission are sure it's the right thing to do to deal with the threat that global warming poses to their country.

"Everybody thinks the Dutch have all the answers on flood control, but of course we don't," says Ms. Metz. "Everyone is going to have to learn as we go along."

—Ms. Abboud is a Wall Street Journal staff reporter in Paris.
Write to Leila Abboud at leila.abboud@wsj.com