Monday, November 14, 2005
We could learn from the Dutch
Regarding their innovative flood-prevention techniques:
The plan, he said, represented a fundamental shift in approach. Rather than continuing to design levees to withstand the highest known flood levels, the government instead built protection to a particular safety level based on risk assessments.
The approach required examining every area of the small country and in each area evaluating a range of risk factors — such as the probability that major flooding would occur there and the density of population in the area — in addition to the area’s elevation above or below sea level. The result was a plan showing differentiated safety levels based on risk. The higher an area’s risk, the higher the government ranked it in terms of priority for flood protection.
Zijlstra said the government saw investing in the plan as “a kind of insurance policy that society, and not the individuals, pay for” in order to assure protection for the whole country. “And today, no one is afraid of living or investing there,” he said.
Full story here
The plan, he said, represented a fundamental shift in approach. Rather than continuing to design levees to withstand the highest known flood levels, the government instead built protection to a particular safety level based on risk assessments.
The approach required examining every area of the small country and in each area evaluating a range of risk factors — such as the probability that major flooding would occur there and the density of population in the area — in addition to the area’s elevation above or below sea level. The result was a plan showing differentiated safety levels based on risk. The higher an area’s risk, the higher the government ranked it in terms of priority for flood protection.
Zijlstra said the government saw investing in the plan as “a kind of insurance policy that society, and not the individuals, pay for” in order to assure protection for the whole country. “And today, no one is afraid of living or investing there,” he said.
Full story here
# posted by Jude Boudreaux @ 11/14/2005 01:01:00 PM 
