Port of Rotterdam: a partnership for risk reduction
In May 2016 the ENHANCE team summarised its work on the Port of Rotterdam, where industrial land outside the dikes falls outside national flood-protection policy and storm surges threaten port operations.
The summary, dated 6 May 2016, dealt with the Port of Rotterdam at the mouth of the Rhine-Meuse delta, described as the largest port in Europe. Much of its industrial land is unembanked, which places it outside national flood-protection policy. Robin Nicolai of HKV Consultants and Riikka Pohjankoski of Arctik were named in connection with the work.
The existing partnership linked the Municipality of Rotterdam and the Province of South-Holland. Since 2011 a provincial policy framework has governed building on unembanked land, and the municipality used a Risk Assessment Tool to apply it to new developments. An evaluation found the weak spots: port stakeholders had little awareness of flood risk, and information and communication about it were poor.
ENHANCE assessed storm-surge flood risk in the port in terms of direct and indirect losses, failure of infrastructure and wider societal disruption. Its recommendation was to widen the partnership beyond the two public partners to include:
- national government and the Port Authority;
- businesses operating in the port;
- the environmental agency DCMR, the safety region, the water boards and utility companies.
In 2016 the national government ran a “pilot study Botlek” on climate adaptation in one part of the port. The ENHANCE team contributed a flood risk assessment specific to Botlek and discussed it with public and private stakeholders. The summary closed with a suggestion aimed at Brussels: the EU should identify other critical infrastructure hubs in Europe and map their resilience to disasters, taking climate change into account.
Later in 2016 the book announcement reported about EUR 200,000 committed to further climate-risk analysis of the port. Other partnership cases are listed in the case-study atlas.