Innovative components
We modelled climate adaptation scenarios on the Waal River (the largest delta distributary of the Rhine River) in which each scenario was driven by the choice of seven measures. We evaluated measures by their efficiency in (1) flood hazard reduction; (2) potential biodiversity; (3) number of stakeholders that owned the floodplain areas as a proxy to governance complexity; and (4) measure implementation cost.
Findings and implications to practice
We found clear trade-offs between evaluation parameters. Large scale lowering of vegetation can compensate the flood safety due to plausible increases in the river discharge and sea level rise. Natural management of the land greatly improves biodiversity, while flood safety effects were limited. For all the other measures, additional dike raising is required. Measures located in state-owned areas are relatively effective, which would simplify decision making due to the limited number of stakeholders. Although no single measure represented the optimal combination in all aspects, the multidimensional evaluation of river interventions opens up opportunities to discuss possible trade-offs.
Green areas show locations owned by the two largest stakeholders, the state (Public Works and Water Management) and the State Forestry Service. The other public and private stakeholders own the remaining areas that are colored in white. The blue areas show the locations where side channels were built. (Source: Figure 4; Straatsma et al. 2019)
Open access publication
Straatsma, M. W., Fliervoet, J. M., Kabout, J. A. H., Baart, F., & Kleinhans, M. G. (2018). Low-hanging fruits in large-scale fluvial landscaping measures: trade-offs between flood hazard, costs, stakeholders and biodiversity. Natural Hazards and Earth System Sciences Discussions, 1–23. https://doi.org/10.5194/nhess-2018-253.
Related outputs
Biodiversity recovery following delta-wide measures for flood risk reduction
We show the biodiversity recovery from 15 years flood risk adaptation that consider nature requirements building a spatial extension to calculate biodiversity scores.
08/11/2017 by Menno Straatsma et al.
Contains: Dataset upon request Publication open access Storyline for practice
Flood hazard reduction from automatically applied landscaping measures in RiverScape
Seven flood reduction measures along the Waal river were ranked according to the water level reduction and the displaced material for their implementation.
01/03/2018 by Menno Straatsma et al.
Contains: Model or tool upon request
Last modified: 24/01/2019