Because twenty-five percent of the country lies below sea level, approximately two-thirds of the country is at risk of flooding when storms come inland from the sea or rain causes rivers to overflow. The Dutch landscape is characterized by river deltas, through which large rivers like the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt meander to the sea. This cutting-edge program made visible and returned to use traditional ways of flood management. Yet, some of the measures it recommended, such as digging a bypass and raising mounds in the Noordwaard, also recalled into practice much older approaches. Room for the River represented a paradigm shift from the flood management policies of the recent past. The program dedicated a special team to monitor progress on cultural issues. Another innovative characteristic was its dual objective of ensuring safety and contributing to spatial quality–which the program defined as the balance between hydraulic effectiveness, ecological robustness, and cultural meaning and aesthetics. In a departure from past policies, most measures took place in the winter bed, or floodplain, of the river or behind its dike. Formed in response to large river discharges occurring in 19–and the precautionary evacuation of two hundred fifty thousand inhabitants which accompanied them–Room for the River consisted of more than thirty projects and eight measures. We focus on the cultural water landscape of the Noordwaard. We consider which measures used in this program might be useful in addressing the possibly accelerated pace of climate change and rise in sea level. This chapter compares the state river management program, Room for the River (undertaken from 2006 to 2015), to historical flood management strategies and techniques. Approaches to flood management, however, date back many more centuries. Dutch river management has changed dramatically over the past two hundred years.
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