Learning from our projects: Evaluating and Improving Risk Management of the Flood Protection Program (HWBP)

The Netherlands has a long history of protecting against flooding and high water levels. Due to the climate change and the sea level rise, the next flood could have a high impact on this small country. Hoogwaterbeschermingsprogramma (HWBP), the current largest flood defence program in the Netherlands, makes sure that all the flood defence facilities (dike, pomp, dune) in the Netherlands comply with the safety norms. HWBP has two objectives: 1. Increasing the pace of improving the flood defence facilities to 50 km per year. 2. Reducing the average costs of the flood defence improvement to 7 million euro per kilometre. To reach these objectives, special attention should be given to the management of risks in HWBP projects. Current risk management literature mentions that risk management contributes to project success. Despite the benefits of risk management, projects still lack a proper application of riskIntegral Design and Managemen