Toespraak van Z.K.H. de Prins van Oranje voor de Informele Milieuraad te Maastricht op zondag 18 juli 2004 (Engels)
Speech by His Royal Highness the Prince of Orange at the Informal Environment Council in Maastricht on Sunday 18 July 2004
Madame Chair. Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen.
Hazards are an unavoidable part of life. Each day, every one of us faces some degree of personal risk from hazards of one kind or another. The hazards we face are very diverse. They arise from our society (conflicts, civil strife) and from technology ( industrial and transport accidents), as well as from our natural environment and then I think of floods, windstorms, droughts and earthquakes.
According to the UN/International strategy for Disaster Reduction a hazard is a:
"potentially damaging physical event or phenomenon that can harm people and their welfare."
To clarify this - Hazards can be described as latent conditions that may represent future threats. While a Disaster is seen as a serious disruption to the normal functioning of a community.
Our challenge is to prevent a potential hazard from becoming a disaster.
Various institutions and insurance companies have produced reports on natural hazards and disasters. One fact from these reports is that the number and scale of natural disasters and their increasing impact within recent years have resulted in massive loss of life and long term negative social economic and environmental consequences for all societies throughout the world. Natural disasters affect not just millions of people and their belongings but also have impact on societies seen as "outside" the immediate disaster area.
To give you an example: During the nineteen fifties of the last century, worldwide 20 natural disasters were registered, estimated economic loss 35 bn Euro. During the nineteen nineties the total was 91 with an estimated economic loss of 550 bn Euro.
When we focus on Europe I would like to draw your attention to the report published by the European Environment Agency: 'Mapping the impacts of recent natural disasters and technological accidents in Europe'.
"During the period 1998- 2002 floods comprised 43% of all disaster events. From the damaging floods that occurred in Europe over the reported period several areas tend to be flooded several times over a relatively short period Romania, France, Germany, Italy and the east of England experienced the highest concentration of repeated flooding."
So far I have mentioned flooding in general. But if you take a closer look at the phenomenon of flooding, one can notice a difference in type of cause and effect.
Flash floods for instance cause widespread destruction in relatively small areas. In association with other natural events such as landslides disastrous consequences follow. These are fairly common in the Mediterranean and mountain areas, and are a particular danger to people since, as their name suggests, they happen suddenly and with little warning.
Another type of flooding - Diffuse flooding - also has environmental impact, facilitating for instance the infiltration of polluted runoff into the local aquifers.
Flooding caused by storms mainly affects coastal areas, but it may coincide with high waters in river estuaries, as was the case with the floods in northeast England in the autumn of 2000. Hundreds of families were evacuated and the economic loss was about 6 bn Euro.
From this we can see that the major floods experienced across Europe in recent years have shown that not only the Dutch have to face the challenge presented to them by high water. It is a pan-European issue.
Across the ages we fought against flooding. This was done by regulating our river discharges via locks, floodgates and building high, strong dikes. We thought we had our rivers under our total control and we thought that flooding would never happen again. And so we built up our original flood plains without thinking or considering the risks of flooding.
It is now commonly accepted that the global climate is changing. According to the scenarios presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change( IPCC), the precipitation pattern in Europe will change. More rain will fall during winter; there will be longer drier summers with intermittent heavy rainstorms. This will bring more water to river systems outside of what we currently experience. Consequently, the high discharge will cause more floods if we don't change our attitude to flood prevention and prediction and think about reducing the risks from the hazards of flooding.
Risk reduction is a long term process, not a one-off intervention. Viewing disasters in this way steers us away from the short term technical fix towards longer term, wider sustainable strategies.
Over the past decades there have been rapid advances in Europe not only in water management but also in policies on the environment ecology and spatial planning.
Unfortunately, there has not always been sufficient recognition of the logical interrelationships between the various policy fields. Greater integration is needed to tackle a combination of problems occurring from a growing population, economic and social developments and climate change. This must be done sooner rather than later.
Water management "the modern way" must be multidisciplinary. Civil engineers must work together with:
spatial planners,
hydrologists,
meteorologists,
agriculturists,
environmentalists,
economists,
legal experts,
and even historians like me.
In Holland as in other European countries we are facing a combination of problems:
sea level rise,
soil subsidence,
high peaks in river volumes.
The risk to safety therefore is growing at an accelerated pace. One that must be attended to.
As I mentioned before we built our dikes and dams against flooding. We felt safe until nature gave The Netherlands a wake up call in 1993 and 1995!
High discharges from the river Rhine almost caused a serious disaster and 250.000 people had to be evacuated. The disruption was immense. It could have been far worse.
After this, the government decided to change their attitude to flood protection.
Building and reinforcing of our existing dikes and dams was no longer the only solution to protect us against flooding. Our water systems need room to evolve if they are to cope with uncertain and unforeseen future developments.
One of the results of this is water conservation throughout the entire catchment area and enlarging the flow area of the river rather than embarking on a further round of dike strengthening. In other words, addressing the problem as a whole, managing all the facets of it. Holistically.
Making room for water also means that we may sometimes need to take a step back and, for instance, stop building in the winter flood plains of the rivers. Now we have begun to reserve land, maintaining and improving flood protection, safeguarding our heritage and our future.
An important principle for future water management is to base measures on natural processes and to restore the resilience of water systems. This can be achieved by encouraging water conservation and buffering to make areas more self-sufficient. This encapsulation will help to ensure that problems are resolved within catchment areas rather than transferred to adjacent areas.
Due to ongoing climate change the sea level continues to rise and the higher the sea level, the higher the water in the tidal areas and the harder it is for river water to drain off.
Another result of climate change is that the probability of an extreme weather event occurring rises. The more water that has to flow through any river channel, the higher the water level in that channel will become. This leads to a much-increased chance of flooding, from either overflowing or destabilising dikes.
The larger the difference between water levels (either sea level or river level) and lower lying areas then the greater the impact of a flood will be.
Besides these physical problems, we must face the fact that more and more economic activities are taking place in areas that are endangered by high water problems from rivers. This means that when a flood event occurs the social and economic impact will be enormous.
To summarize;
A changing climate means more frequent and higher peaks in river volumes combined with a reduced drainage capacity. In addition the soil is subsiding and population density continues to grow, as does the economy. Consequently the vulnerability of society and its economy to high water disasters increases.
Since the safety risk is growing and waters do not recognise administrative or political borders, thinking and acting in partnership on a catchment scale has to start now.
This is even more so since experience has shown that positive local measures in one part of the catchment can have adverse effects on other parts (up- or downstream). Hence a holistic approach is required.
The E.U. Framework Directive requires member states to cooperate across a catchment area to protect and improve water quality; the high water challenge thus calls for international cooperation on river basin management.
I am glad to know that in some of the major river systems in the European Union, planning has been made to address flooding. Making flood plans not only requires preparation of our warning systems but must also take into consideration the way we are going to build on and utilise those areas. That means reducing the vulnerability of real estate and infrastructure that could be flooded and adapting existing uses in flood prone areas.
I conclude that we must learn to live with flood events, since they are a part of nature they will always occur. But it is well within our power to do something about this.
We must behave in a manner that mitigates the potential risks for people, property and possessions. Better decision-making, improved planning, effective risk management, innovation in development and environmental protection activities are the human activities that can reduce the vulnerability to communities and society.
These are required to be undertaken now and I like to quote the following proverb:
"You can't control the wind, but you can adjust your sails"
I wish you a fruitful meeting and I thank you for your attention.