Resilience and flood risk management: A systems approach applied to lowland rivers

Floods along lowland rivers still cause a lot of damage and casualties although centuries of experience with flood risk management have passed. In order to reduce flood impacts and to prevent flood waves from causing disasters, the current and alternative flood risk management strategies need to be reconsidered. As a potential solution the Dutch policy makers propose to increase the resilience of systems, since resilient systems are expected to be able to cope better with disturbances such as flood waves. In their policies, however, resilience and resilient water systems are not clearly defined. Resilience has a positive connotation although it is difficult to explain exactly what the positive aspects of resilient systems for water management are. In this thesis this positive connotation of resilience was verified. The objective of this research was to establish whether applying the resilience concept facilitates the development of comprehensive strategies for flood risk management of large lowland river systems. To study the potential benefits resulting from the application of the resilience concept first resilience was defined and quantified by indicators. Secondly, case studies were carried out on the lowland parts of the Rhine, Meuse and Mekong Rivers