UFM: Urban Flood Management

Managing residual flood risk in the urban environment: linking spatial planning, risk assessment and communication

The Dutch have a long tradition of fighting against water by building dikes and an extensive network of canals and sluices. For centuries, these measures have made the Dutch low lands a safe place to live. However, global climatic change and societal developments such as rapid urbanisation are increasing flood risk en the potential impact on people and the local economy. Constructing ever stronger dikes reduced the probability of flooding, but has also lead to increased vulnerability - as the Dutch witnessed in the nineties. There has been a growing recognition that an optimal response to control future flood risk might require new solutions. This has lead to change the Dutch water management policy from ´Fighting against water´ to ´Living with water´. This new policy combines spatial planning and economic risk assessment to give more space to rivers in order to prevent uncontrollable flooding in vulnerable areas, and keep the Netherlands safe on the long term.

A hot spot for this policy is the densely populated river delta in the west of the Netherlands. In its centre, surrounded by three rivers, lies the historical city of Dordrecht. With its many flood-prone areas, some of which not protected by dikes, it has a strong interest in reducing the risk of urban flooding. A major regeneration effort of the Stadswerven area created the opportunity for the research of new planning approaches to manage actual and future (residual) flood risks.

A move to better integrated Flood resilience measures, and achieving inter-institutional/stakeholder working will be key to improving UFM overall. Therefore the project has gathered various public and private partners in the key consortium with a well-balanced distribution over type of organization and issues. There are local, regional and national authorities, a water board, research institutes, a developer and a housing corporation. In the process, the local scale will be especially important as a platform to work towards an approach that ‘cultivates’ resilience i.e. encourages it to grow. Hence, the design of the project places great weight on combining technical means with participatory planning and design approaches. This provides the mechanism to help stakeholders to learn about future changes and from interacting with other participants, and the mechanism to encourage stakeholders to take a holistic view, so that plans and designs achieve benefits of synergetic effects.

Urban Flood Management is a joined project initiated by three cities facing similar flood risk: Dordrecht (NL), London (UK) and Hamburg (DE). The UFM project in Dordrecht is supported by the Living with Water programme.

Read more about the dilemma of flood management, the UFM project and De Stadswerven.