Proactive Planning for Resilience: Protocols for Community-Led Climate Adaptation in Virginia

Room for the River in The Netherlands

For over 800 years, Dutch flood control techniques revolved around dike building. However, in the wake of the rapidly changing climate and a series of disastrous floods in the 1990s, experts maintained that if nothing changed, the country would be trapped in a perpetual cycle of increasing the strength and height of their dikes – something that still, arguably, would not be enough to adequately reduce their flood risk. Instead of trying to restrict the river and fight against floods with dikes, the Netherlands planned to move forward into the twenty-first century by expanding their flood plains, making Room for the River, and allowing more water to flow.¹

Key Features & A History of Dutch Flood Control Politics

Between the Middle Ages and 1900, Dutch flood defense and water control revolved around community water boards, or waterschappen. However, following the 20th century development of the national water management agency (the Rijkswaterstaat), these water boards saw a great reduction in quantity and power. Between 1900 and 2018, the number of water boards declined from approximately 3500 to 21, and for a majority of the 20th century, the Rijkswaterstaat developed into an increasingly hierarchical structured organization that imposed top-to-bottom policy measures and largely viewed communication with stakeholders as a one-way propaganda effort to make critics change their mind.² However, with the national shift in flood control attitude in the 1990s came a shift in the way in which community members were engaged. The onset of the implementation of the Room for the River program thus came with an increase in stakeholder inclusivity, input, and collaboration as institutional change occurred to shift from a protective, dike-focused strategy to a preventative, floodplain expanding one.³ This attitude shift was in large part caused by the “professionalization of interest groups and the emancipation of citizens.”⁴

How Citizens were Informed

Even in a country as water-focused as the Netherlands, the government had to successfully conduct a public awareness campaign about the Room for the River program. Until the floods of the 1990s, the government narrative had revolved around “sleeping safely behind the dikes,” which had gradually increased Dutch complacency to flood risk. However, the Room for the River projects, which are spatial and preventative in nature, required a higher level of flood-risk awareness to successfully implement. Thus, the government reversed course and showed a willingness to contradict its previous stance. The Vice Minister of Water Management openly stressed that absolute safety behind dikes was impossible and spatial solutions were presented as unavoidable.⁵ Moreover, before and during project implementation, information apps were made available and discussion evenings were held to keep citizens informed.⁶ Though the Netherlands is undoubtedly more water-focused and thus residents are more easily made aware of and receptive to flood resilience measures than in the United States (water adaptation is a deeply ingrained, generational education topic for them), the important takeaway is that it is vital for leaders to show humility yet confidence in their convictions and to make an effort to proactively disperse information to the public, not just have it available upon request.

Key Challenges

There were a few key challenges both anticipated and encountered during the Room for the River project, some of which are outlined in The Politics of Resilience in the Dutch ‘Room for the River’-project by Hans de Bruijn, Mark de Bruijne, and Ernst ten Heuvelhof. The four key challenges are as follows:

Fragmentation: this project involved bringing together a patchwork of political players and groups: the central government, municipal and regional officials, water boards, interest groups, and local citizens, among others. Adding to this challenge is the fact that policy-makers chose a systems-based approach, encouraging local municipalities, contractors, and researchers to each propose their own solutions. While this increased agency and responsibility and encouraged innovation and efficiency from all parties involved, it did leave officials with a final tally of over 700 proposed measures to narrow down to around 30.
Split incentives: coupled with the issue of fragmentation is the fact that many of the proposed structures and measures required actions – i.e., costs – to be taken in one socio-political zone, but the benefits to be given to another. Understandably, imposing one-sided costs on regions will result in a lot of social and political unrest.
Contested impacts: the issues arising from a split incentive structure also bleed into this issue. Split incentives can incentivize officials to contest the impacts of measures for which their constituents bear the costs. Politicians can commission agencies to conduct alternative cost-benefit analyses that can possibly criticize the positive impacts or challenge the cost calculations of a measure. This can severely hamper the project’s implementation and undermine its legitimacy.
Contested objectives: even in a country as water-resilient minded as the Netherlands, there still exists a broad spectrum of targets people want to have met. Before the implementation of Room for the River, flood safety policy calculated for accommodating a discharge volume capacity in the branches of the Rhine River of up to 15,000 m³/s. Initially, experts called for this figure to be raised to 16,0000 m³/s, but then in light of new data, they advocated for 18,000 m³/s. Due to the fact that at no point during the floods of the 1990s was the rate of 15,000 m³/s reached, many believed that, accurate or not, the 18,000 m³/s figure may seem overly high to the general public and may serve as an incentive to contest the objective of the project as a whole.⁷

Solutions

According to the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, which was central in overseeing the entire Room for the River project, key to their success in overcoming these challenges was recognizing the unique wants, needs, and features of each individual region and leveraging these unique features to their benefit. Striking up close collaborations with water boards, municipal authorities, and other local authorities was not only critical to delicately mediating differences, but also served as a prime opportunity for officials to actively engage with local residents to harness their knowledge and ideas for their local area. This manifested in the following project implementation strategy.⁸ In order to tackle their two biggest challenges (fragmentation and the resulting split incentives), officials devised a strategy with two key elements:

The broadening of the main agenda: officials made it so that the decision making process on the measures proposed would not only be about flood protection, but also about “spatial quality.” Issues like tourism, economic development, housing, agriculture, the creation of new natural environments, etc., were also considered.
The invitation for all parties to put their own issues on this broad agenda: local authorities and stakeholders were encouraged to leverage their local expertise and come to the table with very specific issues to address. Officials were open to alternative project proposals.

These two strategies were a game changer. The entire implementation process shifted from a single-issue focused debate to a multi-issue, dynamic, agenda. They produced, among others, many important incentives that were vital to the project’s success:

Incentives for all agents to take part in the process: because the agenda became a multi-issued one, missing out on the negotiations and conversations involved became a non-starter. Because there were so many more ways to gain and benefit from the decisions made, missing out on the decision-making process was not an option.
Incentives for give and take: because there were so many issues at play, parties were more willing to make concessions on one issue in return for compensation on other issues. Moreover, this meant that parties were incentivized to contribute to the water management goals in return for more support with regard to other issues.
Incentives for cooperative behavior: during the decision making process, “changing coalitions” emerged, which were coalitions of supporters and opponents for each issue. This mutual interdependence meant that parties could be both supporters and opponents of each other, incentivizing all to behave in more rational and moderate ways.
Incentives for learning processes: the many different issues on the agenda made new and unusual combinations possible, such as:
- Widening and deepening harbors to make more room for recreational boats which also made a contribution towards increasing the water volume capacity to 18,000 m³/s.
- Widening the land area between the river and the river dike and allowing cattle to graze on the land. The cattle take care of dike maintenance and river flow is also improved.⁹
- Moving dikes back and digging a channel that is used for rowing and sailing and that created an island that serves as an urban recreational park, filled with concert venues, restaurants, cafes, and trails. Doing so also diverted part of the river during high waters, allowing for larger discharge at the river bend and a reduced possibility of flooding.¹⁰

This strategy also adequately addressed the issue of contested impacts and objectives. Because people were incentivized to behave moderately and fairly to one another and because the multi-issued agenda meant that a much larger mass of “winners” was able to be formed, officials minimized contesting of the target inflow value. Although the ultimate solution was to achieve a 16,000 m³/s inflow capacity, it was agreed to institute measures to enable the projects to be upscaled quickly and easily in order to eventually accommodate a 18,000 m³/s figure.

It is also important to note that not only was the input, expertise, and collaboration of local officials called upon, responsibilities were also, wherever possible, delegated to local authorities. This was very important in ensuring the efficiency of the project rollout. Less time and effort was needed to establish close connections with local residents, institutions, and contractors. However, the federal government still offered communities the option of taking over implementation and assuming the responsibilities of a given project. This enabled parties to seek roles and responsibilities that they felt most comfortable with, to which they could contribute their own unique strengths without fear of failure.

Overcoming Remaining Opposition

While the aforementioned strategies were key in successfully implementing all 34 projects and reducing community opposition, they were not able to combat all of it. The projects often inevitably resulted in disruptions to communities, landscapes, livelihoods, and agriculture, and although citizens were not against flood control itself, they often questioned the specific method or location of said preventative measures. In essence, many bore a “not in my backyard” sentiment.¹¹ Citizens banded together to form stakeholder coalitions which held a sizable amount of power over the government. The government response to this opposition generally came in the following forms:

Officials would sit down at the “kitchen table” (i.e., have localized-level, informal, balanced conversations) with residents and look for individual solutions with them.
Homeowners were offered the opportunity to sell their homes for fair market value.
- In the end, around 200 houses were bought out for about $500 million, or approximately ⅕ of the total project budget.¹²
Farmers were offered assistance in finding new farmland.
Those that still wanted to live in the area could get compensation for moving to higher ground or taking measures for better protection against high water.¹³
Responsibilities for managing opposition were delegated to local authorities, wherever possible.¹⁴

The willingness of officials to be transparent and fair in their response to holdouts was critical in mitigating the use of compulsory forces like eminent domain. Vic Gremmer, a resident of Nordwaard who had to abandon his home on the floodplain, exemplifies the degree to which this approach can be successful. Upon initially learning of the plan, he was upset, maintaining that “[he] wanted to stay and … be protected.” However, after what was arguably the result of a mix of the Netherlands’ unique collective history with the water and the successful conversations and public awareness campaigns of officials, Gremmer eventually became so conscious of the potential consequences of staying and doing nothing that he ended up chairing a community group to help plan the buyouts.¹⁵

Though these measures did not curtail all negative sentiment and there were individuals who had to unhappily move and/or reach settlement agreements, in the end, legal compulsory forces (i.e., eminent domain powers from the Compulsory Purchase Act, or Onteigeningswet) were, by and large, very rare.¹⁶

A Note on Funding

As mentioned above, living with and dealing with water is deeply entrenched in the Dutch collective psyche; there was thus incredible buy-in at all levels of the government. The federal government allotted €2.2 billion for the whole project¹⁷ and the Rijkswaterstaat has already committed over €16bn for flood defenses until 2028.¹⁸ Moreover, the program was also implemented during a period of financial stability, so expenditures for the project were less closely questioned.¹⁹ For a country like the United States, where attitudes towards climate resilience, geography, size, and politics are far less conducive for such an effort, funding for climate adaptation and resilience projects will likely look different. Refer to Step 4 for some potential funding strategies and sources.

Results & Conclusion

The implementation of the Room for the River program in the Netherlands offers valuable insights into the successful execution of ambitious climate change resilience and adaptation measures. Throughout the whole process, key factors like government flexibility, collaboration with local community stakeholders, and the alignment of project measures with local desires and values (like social stability, economic growth, cultural preservation, tourism, etc.) were critical in ensuring the project’s success. Vic Gremmer, the spokesperson for the residents of Noordwood (a town where 24 families were forced to move out to make room for a flood plain), summarizes the sentiment of many when he stated that “being forced to move so other people can keep their feet dry is acceptable. The key is to make us safe and compensate us properly.”²⁰ This underscores the success of the government in engaging the community at all levels. That is not to say that these strategies fully eliminated contest and objection. The way in which one deals with opposition is arguably as important as how one attempts to prevent it in the first place. It is imperative to deal with critics with a collaborative lens; stringing stakeholders along in unproductive conversations is beneficial to no one. By prioritizing transparency, collaboration and inclusivity, future climate adaptation projects can build upon the successes of Room for the River and contribute to building more resilient and sustainable communities in the face of climate change challenges.

Endnotes

¹ Jan Goossen, W. Interview — The Dutch make room for the river. European Environment Agency. https://www.eea.europa.eu/signals-archived/signals-2018-content-list/articles/interview-2014-the-dutch-make.
² Dik Roth, Jeroen Warner, & Madelinde Winnubst, “Room for the river, no room for conflict,” In Split Waters: The Idea of Water Conflicts (p. 69). Taylor & Francis. (2021), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/351677490_Room_for_the_river_no_room_for_conflict
³ Ibid.
⁴ Jurian Edelenbos, Arwin Van Buuren, Dik Roth, & Madelinde Winnubst, “Stakeholder initiatives in flood risk management: exploring the role and impact of bottom-up initiatives in three ‘Room for the River’ projects in the Netherlands,” Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, 60(1), 47–66 (2016). 10.1080/09640568.2016.1140025.
⁵ Roth, Warner, and Winnubst, “Room for the river,” p. 75
⁶ Maria Kaufmann, Willemijn van Doorn-Hoekveld, H.K. Gilissen, & HFMW van Rijswick, “Analysing and evaluating flood risk governance in the Netherlands”, Utrecht University (p. 67) (2016), https://repository.ubn.ru.nl/bitstream/handle/2066/159329/159329.pdf.
⁷ Hans de Bruijn, Mark de Bruijne, & Ernst ten Heuvelhof, “The politics of resilience in the Dutch ‘Room for the River’ project,” Procedia Computer Science, 44, 665–665 (2015), 10.1016/j.procs.2015.03.070.
⁸ Ibid. (665-667).
⁹ Jan Goossen, W. “Dutch make room”
¹⁰ “How the Dutch make “room for the river” by redesigning cities,” Scientific American, January 20, 2012, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-the-dutch-make-room-for-the-river/.
¹¹ Roth, Warner, and Winnubst, “Room for the river,” p. 72
¹² Tegan Wendland, “Water ways: Dutch cities are letting the water in,” Pulitzer Center, March 10, 2020, https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/water-ways-dutch-cities-are-letting-water.
¹³ Sander van Alphen, “Room for the River: Innovation, or Tradition? The Case of the Noordwaard,” In: Hein, C. (eds) Adaptive Strategies for Water Heritage. Springer, Cham. (2020) 10.1007/978-3-030-00268-8_16.
¹⁴ Kaufmann, et al., “Analysing and evaluating flood,” p. 62
¹⁵ Wendland, “Water ways”
¹⁶ Erwin van der Krabben, Huub Ploegmakers, and Ary Samsura, “The Netherlands: the public development of land,” In: Land management for Urban Dynamics: innovative methods and practices in a changing Europe (pp. 269-280), 2011, p. 270 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/282653626_The_Netherlands_the_public_development_of_land
¹⁷ “How the Dutch make”
¹⁸ Damian Carrington, “Taming the floods, Dutch-style,” The Guardian, May 19, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/may/19/floods-dutch-britain-netherlands-climatechange.
¹⁹ Kaufmann et al., “Analysing and evaluating flood,” p. 65
²⁰ Ibid.

Header Image
Tom Jutte. Taken July 17, 2014. Bunschoten, Utrecht, The Netherlands. flickr.com/photos/hereistom/