Understanding Dutch Flood-Risk Management

This chapter discusses the governance of flood risks in a specific case, the Netherlands, by way of explaining the core normative principles that rule the Dutch. To be able to understand the Dutch approach it is important to sketch briefly the historical role of floods and flood management in the country. The chapter first discusses different principles and characteristics of Dutch flood-risk governance. It begins with the concept of public interest and water management: the strong idea of flood safety as a unitary, collective public interest leads to a call for national solidarity. This solidarity principle is very strong, but also has some limitations, both for those that fall out of the system and for international solidarity and cross-border governance. As a consequence, (internal) solidarity strengthens the national public infrastructure for flood risks, reinforcing certain national flood-risk strategies, which influence the third principle: the principle of resilience.