Efficient or Fair? Operationalizing Ethical Principles in Flood Risk Management: A Case Study on the Dutch-German Rhine.

Flood risk management decisions in many countries are based on decision-support frameworks which rely on cost-benefit analyses. Such frameworks are seldom informative about the geographical distribution of risk, raising questions on the fairness of the proposed policies. In the present work, we propose a new decision criterion that accounts for the distribution of risk reduction and apply it to support flood risk management decisions on a transboundary stretch of the Rhine River.

Assessment of the Netherlands' flood risk management policy under global change.

Climate change and sea level rise urge low-lying countries to draft adaption policies. In this context, we assessed whether, to what extent and when the Netherlands' current flood risk management policy may require a revision. By applying scenarios on climate change and socio-economic development and performing flood simulations, we established the past and future changes in flood probabilities, exposure and consequences until about 2050.