Title: Flood risk, flood prevention and flood insurance in The Netherlands
1Flood risk, flood prevention and flood insurance
in The Netherlands
- Karel Heynert Laurens Bouwer
- Deltares, The Netherlands
2This talk
3(No Transcript)
4The Netherlands - delta of 4 international basins
Amsterdam
Schiphol
4
5The Netherlands protected by levees
Total Vulnerable to flooding
Surface Area 41.528 km² 55
Inhabitants 16,8 million 60
GNP 700 billion 65
6(No Transcript)
7Flood protection in The Netherlands (current)
Return periods
4,000yr
- 53 flood protection areas (dike rings)
- Protection level based on probability of
exceedance of design waterlevels - 5 different protection standards
- Procedure in Water Act
- Formal verification every 6 yrs
1,250yr
10,000yr
4,000yr
2,000yr
8Towards a flood risk based approach
- Decision making based on flood risk
- Still largely an engineering approach, but
- Flood risk
- Unprotected areas flood hazard vulnerability
(mapping) - Areas with flood defences failure probability
consequences (calculations) - Rationale for investments in flood defences
- Economic viability
- Probability of loss of life lt 10-5
9Computing flood risk
10Computing flood risk
Potential inundation depth in (meter)
- Some points of attention
- Indirect damage
- Critical infrastructure
- Not all parts of levee system are equally
important - Flood protection units interact
11Potential loss of life
- Preventing loss of life
- Flood protection
- Flood warning crisis management
28 oktober 2015
12Flood insurance
13Insurability of flood damage in The Netherlands
X
- Local flood damage ? ordinary insurance policies
- 1 Water damage in house (rain)
- 2 High groundwater
- 3 Sewer flooding
- 4 Polder water system
14Insurability of flood damage in The Netherlands
X
- Local flood damage ? ordinary insurance policies
- 1 Water damage in house (rain)
- 2 High groundwater
- 3 Sewer flooding
- 4 Polder water system
Flooding, due to failure of defences ? coverage
?? 5 Failure regional flood defence 6 Failure
of primary flood defence 7 Unembanked areas
15Flood insurance in The Netherlands
- Building and home content policies
- Crop loss insurance stopped in 09
- Government compensation act (WTS)
- New disaster insurance
- Flooding, terrorism, earthquake etc
- Limited to 75 k per insured object
- Limit in nr of households in unit
- Flood insurance pool proposed by Dutch
Association of Insurers - Obligatory, incl. in house insurance!
- Annual max. coverage 5,000 M
- Seems rejected by NL cartel authority
16Future direction of flood insurance?
- Flood risk management policy based on
- Prevention
- Optimal investments
- Prevention of loss of life
- High protection levels
- Infrequent events
- High accumulation risk
- Limited flood awareness (?)
- Public anticipation of role government
- So where should we with flood insurance?
- Mainly for regional water systems?
-
17- How to balance between
- investments in flood protection and
- relying on flood insurance?
- Thank you!