The Netherlands “Room for the River” Project’s Alternative Solution in the Fight Against Rising Sea Levels
Nirja Divekar
While many countries build artificial barriers such as levees or dams along coastal borders to combat rising sea levels, the Netherlands has found an alternative method to protect their borders.
Seawalls are used along coasts to prevent flooding and protect from water storms. One example is how Tanzania built seawalls to combat the rising sea level eroding the coastline. While these artificial borders help preserve coastlines, they are unsustainable.
Artificial levees are fairly similar to natural levees, except that they are built with concrete instead of the sediment produced from weather and erosion found in natural levees. Concrete is not biodegradable and pollutes nearby water bodies as it wears down over time.
Environmental-based solutions would be preferable to reinforce the existing ecology’s protective capacities. Not only are they effective, but they also have a lower cost and are more sustainable. One country that has pioneered these measures is the Netherlands.
The Netherlands has been facing the threat of climate change with 90% of the city of Rotterdam below sea level. The country lies in a delta where three rivers — the Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt — intersect and spill into the ocean. As ocean levels rise, the risk of flooding increases. In order to adapt to these changes, the Netherlands has developed eco-friendly measures that help protect their borders and prevent submersion.
With concerns over the rising water, climate change is integral in many businesses. The New York Times interviewed Henk Ovink, the country’s globally-recognized salesman-in-chief for Dutch expertise on rising water and climate change on the topic.
“We can’t just keep building higher levees, because we will end up living behind 10-meter walls,” Ovink said. “We need to give the rivers more places to flow. Protection against climate change is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain, and the chain in our case includes not just the big gates and dams at the sea but a whole philosophy of spatial planning, crisis management, children’s education, online apps, and public spaces.”
The Dutch have built “water parks” that double as reservoirs for the swelling water levels in a project called “Room for the River.” As the name suggests the goal is to make room for the river by increasing the rivers’ capacity to cope with high water levels. The project began by addressing the increased risk of flooding caused by frequent and heavy rainfall. Other plans for the project included lowering floodplains in some locations, locating levees further inland, and constructing high-water channels.
As we start to understand the importance of protecting our borders from rising sea levels, we should learn from developments created all around us. The “Room for the River” project may inspire us to get creative with more sustainable solutions for our future projects.
Nirja Divekar is a sophomore at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. She is an advocate for climate change and is involved in multiple climate change organizations, where she aims to contribute to her community. Nirja wrote about a Dutch project that is aiming to combat rising sea levels; this piece is important to her because it highlights alternatives to sea walls and discusses sustainable water management techniques.
