Dutch masters: The Netherlands exports flood-control expertise
By Chris Iovenko
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Dutch expertise in water management is as old as the Netherlands itself, and as global seas rise, the Dutch are still on the front lines in dealing with flooding and sea-level rise. This prowess is not only helping them in their own efforts, but now they “are going all around the world consulting and selling their engineering expertise,” says journalist Jeff Goodell, author of the 2017 book “The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World.” They are “trying to export that expertise; it’s their growth industry. … It’s their Silicon Valley.” And coastal cities in the U.S. and elsewhere are hoping Dutch ingenuity will work for them as well in fighting back the encroaching seas.
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In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, President Obama allocated $60 billion to help the East Coast recover from the disaster, and updated flood standards for federal agencies to allow for the inclusion of climate science and sea-level rise data to help determine flood risk regulations (rules since rescinded by President Trump). The Obama administration saw in the effort to rebuild and recover from the disaster an opportunity to better prepare the region for the perils of future storms and flooding. The plan was to rebuild better and smarter, with resiliency in mind. As part of this effort, Obama sent Shaun Donovan, then secretary of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), to the Netherlands to observe Dutch flood-control and prevention measures. There, Donovan met Ovink, who was eager to show off the Dutch prowess in dealing with water. Donovan was impressed by what he saw, and he and Ovink eventually became partners. Ovink moved to the U.S. and oversaw a multifaceted planning and design competition called Rebuild by Design, which was launched by the Hurricane Sandy Rebuilding Task Force in June 2013. Rebuild by Design was a complex and ambitious undertaking that sought to integrate a wide range of government entities, nonprofits, community organizations and stakeholders in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York. The concept was to focus on design and let the design dictate specific projects and policy.
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The greatest lesson to be learned from the Dutch is perhaps less about engineering and more about mindset and culture. “It’s easy just to talk about technological and engineering solutions, but a lot of the problems surrounding sea-level rise are legal and political. The Dutch have a legal and political system that is united around dealing with water issues; they’ve been doing it for a thousand years,” Goodell says. “Here in the U.S., it’s not just getting the right engineering ideas and figuring out what technology or design ideas we’re going to use. It’s that our legal system and our political system are just not adapted to thinking about sea-level rise in any kind of holistic way.”
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