Why All-Risk?
Flood risk reduction is one of humankind’s major challenges, especially for the people who live close to the water. In the Netherlands, the Dutch Delta program tackles this challenge through several projects, for example, to protect the delta and give room for the river. However, the influence of climate change has urged the central government and the Regional Water Authorities to follow new safety standards and further reduce flooding probabilities.
Since 2017 new safety standards came legally into place following a risk-based approach. Under the umbrella of the Flood protection program (in Dutch named to as HWPB), the ambition is to offer basic protection for the population living behind the dike and prevent substantial economic damage. Therefore, the government will reinforce about 2/3s of the 3.500 kilometers of the primary flood defences over the next two decades.
Our shared ambition with the Flood protection program naturally led to the question: How can we support the reinforcement of flood defences at an increased pace and decreased cost while considering the implementation’s governance and legal aspects? This question initiated the five years’ research of the All-Risk program, starting from 2017 until the end of 2021.
As a team, we do not only investigate how measures such as the reinforcement of the flood defences can reduce flood risk. We also consider the benefits for the landscape and ecology along with an adequate legal, institutional, and societal context for the implementation.
Who are we?
We are All-Risk. We are a group of 16 Ph.D. students, 4 Postdocs/Researchers, and our supervisors. We work at five different universities. We have backgrounds ranging from dike engineering to law. But we all share a passion for delivering new and better ways to reduce flood risk where we live, are coming from, or there are similar challenges. See below a photo of the team in one of the joint excursions and the dike view nearby one of our houses.
Top photos: All-Risk team in one of the joint excursions and the dike view nearby one of our houses. Bottom photo: Workshop at one of the regional water authorities at the end of February 2019.
We collaborate. We are partners of our users by working together, through user meetings every six months and the All-Risk User Days such as the one that took place in 2019. We collaborate within and beyond All-Risk by working on joint cases with related projects and by organizing or joining program meetings and fieldtrips to interesting locations for research and practice.
We communicate. We publish and attend conferences. We publish and attend conferences. We discuss our results with users, Regional Water Authorities, and the government program for the implementation of the new safety standards. We also exchange experiences with interested parties abroad.
As a research group, we are led by prof.dr.ir. Matthijs Kok (professor of Flood Risk at the section of Hydraulic Structures & Flood Risk of TUDelft) and ir. Richard Jorissen (former director at the Flood Protection Program).
We joined forces along with all partners and related projects to help the practical implementation of the new flood protection standards. We hope and expect that you find useful insights on this website for your work, and if there are opportunities to work together, please contact us!!
Program coordinators
Prof. dr. ir. Matthijs Kok
Matthijs.Kok@tudelft.nl
Ir. Richard Jorissen
R.E.Jorissen@tudelft.nl
With who are we working?
Partly funded by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific research, an important aspect of All-Risk is that we carry out the research within five different universities and work as partners with over 30 users.
Partners include the Ministry of Infrastructure & Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat), seven Regional Water Authorities or waterboards (Waterschap), the Dutch province of Groningen, three knowledge institutes, 13 companies among international consultancies, small and medium enterprises, and non-government organizations. We also strengthen international collaborations by working with universities in the USA, Japan, and Germany. Partners contribute with time and money by, for example facilitating data, supervision and by inviting researchers to work part-time at their office.
Below the list with all parties, which also reflects the wide range of potential users.
Main funding institute
Universities
Government organizations
Research Institutes
Consultancies
Non-government organization
International collaborators
How do we take research into practice?
In the Netherlands, flood defences are one of the most efficient measures to reduce flood risks. Therefore, the ambition of the All-Risk program is to help with the practical challenges of the reinforcements of these measures. To that end, we not only work intensively with interested dike professionals (‘dijkwerkers’ in Dutch) but also support government initiatives.
Here, we highlight the main collaborations:
- The Flood Protection Programme or HWBP. The central and the regional government work together with knowledge institutes and the business community to carry out about 70 dike reinforcement projects to be implemented better, faster and cheaper from 2019 to 2024. Some of these projects are locations for our research such as the Grebbedijk which is a combination of dike reinforcements as well as spatial planning measures.
- POV Macrostabiliteit The “ProjectOverstijgende Verkenning Macrostability” is a research program focusing on the slope stability of dikes. It consists of improved computational methods and innovative pilots to improve for example monitoring. A large sheet pile test is also part of the program. Part of the outcome of the sheet pile test are analysed in All-Risk project D1.
- POV Waddenzee Dijken (POV-W) The collaboration between All-Risk and the POV-W is shaped in different ways. For the project E (law and governance), different legal questions were answered regarding innovative flood defence solutions in Natura 2000 areas. Also, an interactive workshop has been organised by All-Risk and the POV in 2019 and the POV will provide one of the test cases for the legal framework that is currently in progress.
- POV Voorlanden (POV Foreshores) Foreshores included in flood risk management strategies do not only lead to flood risk reduction, but to different legal and governance questions as well. In the collaboration between the POV Foreshores and All-Risk projects, the researchers tackled different legal questions of including foreshores in the assessment of flood defences. The collaboration led to a contribution to the legal chapter of the guidebook Foreshores (Handreiking Voorlanden).
Below the growing list of the related projects that includes but is not limited to the above collaborations.
Related projects
Last modified: 27/11/2020