AMSTERDAM, Netherlands: With two-thirds of the Dutch population living
below sea level, the country's government sees the risk of rising seas
caused by global warming as a matter of life and death. So it's taking
a long term view of the problem — a two hundred-year view, to be exact.
The Cabinet announced plans Friday for a new commission to begin preparing
water defenses through the year 2200.
"We want to make sure that there's still a Netherlands a century from
now," Tineke Huizinga, the country's top water official, told state
broadcaster NOS.
"We don't want to just let the water flow and all have to move to Germany."
The Union of Dutch Municipal Governments welcomed the news Saturday,
even though the plans will likely lead to new taxes, calling it a
"necessity for the Netherlands to prepare for the consequences of
possible climate change and to approach it, in the case of water,
primarily from a safety standpoint."
"We agree that in this light, we have to hold reckoning with extreme
scenarios ... it's important to understand what level of (flooding)
risk is acceptable."
The Netherlands' political history and even its name, which means the
"lowlands," have been shaped by its location at the delta created by
the Rhine and other major European rivers.
The country is in a constant state of constructing and reconstructing
its sea and river dikes, and evaluating and re-evaluating the their
safety.
In December, the government approved a €15 billion (US$20 billion)
increase in spending on water defenses and water quality improvements
over the next 20 years.
That was on top of €3 billion (US$4.1 billion) in extra projects
already in the works this decade against the threat from river floods,
as Dutch climate models predict global warming will lead to more abrupt
showers in the Rhine catchment area, whose water ultimately funnels
through the Netherlands on its way out to the sea.
The country also spends €500 million (US$680 million) annually on
maintaining its intricate existing system of sea and river dikes that
have been built and improved for a millennium.
"I don't want to scare people. Our safety is guaranteed for the coming
50 years, insofar as it can ever be ... we spend a lot of money to make
sure everything is really in order," Huizinga said.
"But we know that the sea levels are rising, and that's going to demand other
solutions."
Dutch policymakers are counting on a rise in sea level of around 80
centimeters (30 inches) in the coming century regardless of the ongoing
scientific debate on the causes and likely impact of global warming.
Strategies introduced in the last decade include pumping sand into
strategic offshore locations where currents in the North Sea sweep them
into place, bulking up dunes; re-establishing minor waterways and
canals to allow the country to absorb sudden influxes of water; and
designating zones for intentional flooding in an emergency.
Engineers believe these sorts of alterations will work up until about a
1.5 meter (5 foot) rise in sea levels. Then solutions become much more
difficult, especially at spots where rivers meet the sea — water now
released through sluices at low tide cannot be pumped uphill.
Some more long-term ideas include altering the course of the Rhine so
that its water travels along a more gradual slope toward the sea; or
creating "breaker islands" off the country's North Sea coast as a
possible defense against a storm surge.
One such surge in 1953 drove water near the Dutch coast more than 13
feet (4 meters) above normal levels, breaching defenses and killing
more than 1,800 people — the Netherlands' "Katrina" moment.
The country then also established a commission similar to the one
announced by Huizinga on Friday, which eventually undertook a massive
40-year building project that made the country's water defenses among
the strongest in the world.
But the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina also spurred the Dutch into
a new round of reflection and preparations, including drawing up
worst-case scenario plans for evacuations — unthinkable politically
just a few years ago.
In a statement, the Cabinet said the new commission would "put forward
advice by next year on how to sustainably develop the coastline." The
commission's chief is to be named later this month.
2nd article:
Vulnerable to rising seas, Singapore envisions a giant seawall
By Wayne Arnold Published: August 29, 2007
SINGAPORE: Surrounded by sea and almost pancake flat, Singapore is
without doubt vulnerable to the rising sea levels many scientists
predict global warming will cause.
While topographical maps are considered a military secret here, anyone
flying into Singapore can easily see that the island is
elevation-challenged. Its highest point is a jungle-clad hill rising
165 meters, or 540 feet, above sea level. Most of the business-end of
Singapore - its airport, its business district and, of course, its busy
container ports, lie less than two meters above sea level.
Faced with the prospect of a long, slow submersion into the very waters
that serve as the lifeblood of this maritime trading hub, Singapore has
reached out to the world's greatest experts on the subject of battling
back the sea - the Dutch.
"We are already in consultations with Delft in Holland to learn how we
can build dikes," said Lee Kuan Yew, the former prime minister, in an
interview last Friday.
Delft Hydraulics, a research institute and consulting firm specializing
in water management issues in the canalled Dutch city of Delft, is
already helping Singapore convert its biggest river and marina into a
huge downtown reservoir. Now it is also helping the city-state look
into just what it can do to defend its roughly 200-kilometer, or
125-mile, coastline.
"We feel we have strong reasons to be concerned, but no reasons
for panic," said Vladan Babovic, director of the Singapore Delft Water
Alliance, a $43 million research center opened in February between
Delft, the National University of Singapore and the country's water
management agency, PUB Singapore. "We will be able to resolve these
challenges," he said.
Singapore got a preview of just what havoc rising sea levels could
cause back in 1974 when a rare astronomical event caused the tides to
rise 3.9 meters, more than double the usual level.
"It eroded the coast very badly," said Wong Poh Poh, an associate
professor specializing in beach geography at the National University of
Singapore, who studied the event. Areas along the Singapore River were
inundated, as were parts of the airport and a coastal public park built
on reclaimed land.
Wong later discovered that during such periods of elevated sea levels,
the variations between high and low tide are accentuated, putting the
country's reservoirs, many of which lie adjacent to the coast, at risk.
Singapore officials later used one of Wong's reports to draw the
attention of the United Nations to the problems associated with global
warming.
Still, no one is certain just how much of Singapore is vulnerable to
the problem. The Singapore Delft Water Alliance and researchers at the
national university's Tropical Marine Science Institute began a study
into the potential effects of climate change on Singapore in March. But
the leader of that study, Liong Shie-Yui, said that the group had yet
to produce any noteworthy findings.
Assessing the risk is complicated by the fact that no one knows for
sure just how much the sea may rise or how fast. Estimates vary from as
little as 60 centimeters, or about 24 inches, to as much as 6 meters.
And sea levels are not consistent from place to place: atmospheric
pressure, wind and currents can cause variations.
Ultimately, Singapore is unlikely to build dikes per se, but rather
concrete seawalls, Babovic said. Dikes are technically made of earth.
After digging up and quarrying much of its own interior to reclaim new
land that has increased Singapore's area by between 15 percent and 20
percent, Singapore now relies on imported landfill and sand for its
reclamation efforts and to produce cement for new buildings.
Many scientists believe that dikes are no longer the most
environmentally sensitive solution. Wong recommended docks and seawalls
back in the early 1990s but now said that more natural structures might
work better.
Babovic said that scientists were studying ways to incorporate
mangroves and sea grasses into the design of dikes and seawalls to
improve their environmental impact and make them look better, too.
"You need more imaginative solutions," said Wong. "What we don't want is to put
something there that will constrain future use."
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