The Netherlands: A Laboratory for Dealing with Climate Change

Julian H. Scaff

I recently visited a town outside of Rotterdam in the Netherlands called Nieuwerkerk aan den IJssel (pronounced "newer care-eck on den aye-sell). This is a typical Dutch town, its center ringed by row houses, shops and cafés, the outer parts of the town characterized by nostalgic thatched-roof cottages and windmills that look out on the perfectly flat landscape. The town lies more than 22 feet below sea level, making it the lowest point in the Netherlands, but besides being a statistical curiosity, even that fact is unremarkable, because more than 60% of the population in this country lives below sea level. And what keeps the sea back is not natural geography, but a complex system of dikes, sea walls and storm barriers that the Dutch have been building for the last four hundred years. In addition, thousands of powerful pumps continuously move water out of these low lying areas and into the canals and rivers and eventually to the sea. If these pumps were to suddenly stop, much of the Netherlands would be flooded within six hours.

As I walked around Nieuwerkerk aan den IJssel I tried to imagine the sea level 22 feet over my head. Only the rooftops of the row houses and the tips of the windmills would be visible.

The threat of climate change is very serious for the Netherlands. Although the Dutch have built the most advanced water management system in the world, including thousands of miles of dikes and a complex system of movable storm surge barriers that are truly one of the engineering marvels of the world, a recent report by a research group called The Delta Commission concluded that the Dutch can no longer win their battle with nature. Estimates of sea level rise over the next century range from three to fifteen feet, and there is a limit, from both engineering and economic standpoints to how high the dikes can be raised and the other defenses can be strengthened.

I recently spoke with the leading climate scientist in the Netherlands, Dr. Pavel Kabat, who is professor of earth system science at Wageningen University and director of the national research program on climate and spatial planning. Dr. Kabat explained a fundamental shift in philosophy that has been happening in the Netherlands, from what he described as a "hard" approach of building bigger and bigger infrastructure to keep out the water, to a "soft" approach of allowing more space for flooding and learning to live with water. This means, for the first time in more than 400 years, the Netherlands is relinquishing some land back to the sea. If you have never spent much time in the Netherlands, it's difficult to imagine what a massive change this is for the national psyche. The very existence of the Netherlands is owed to land reclamation—windmills are not just nostalgic objects of a pastoral past but symbols of survival.

The changes have already begun. Some agricultural areas are being depopulated and turned into what the Dutch call "inundation areas", land that can accommodate flooding from rivers. The Netherlands is under threat on all sides, and Dr. Kabat describes the country as “a kind of meeting point of two possible effects of climate change: sea level rise, and the increase of possible big discharges of European rivers flowing into this country. That’s what we have to face.”

However, Dr. Kabat also advocates a different kind of thinking about climate change, seeing it not just as a looming disaster but also as an opportunity to drive innovation. When it comes to water management, the Dutch have been the world leaders for centuries, and the problems that the Netherlands face are not unique on a global scale. Dr. Kabat observes that "around 70% of the world's economy is situated around similar deltas: San Francisco bay, New York, New Orleans, the European cities, Shanghai, Tokyo, everywhere. They are all near the coast, they are all having similar issues to what we have."

The effects of climate change can already be seen in Europe. Winters are wetter and warmer than they were just 30 years ago, summers are warmer and drier, and climate patterns are becoming less predictable. You can even see it in the paintings of the Dutch master artists, such as Rembrandt's famous "Winter Landscape" painting of people ice skating on a frozen canal, something that people use to do every winter. Canal ice skating is increasingly rare in Dutch culture because the canals almost never freeze anymore. For the Dutch climate change is not simply a news report or a PowerPoint presentation by Al Gore; it's something you see happening all around.

Innovation is indeed happening in new and unexpected ways. The Netherlands has long been the most productive greenhouse farming country in the world, and most of the greenhouse farming is done in the flat coastal areas that lie below sea level. Recently the Dutch engineering firm Dura Vermeer constructed an experimental farm near Rotterdam where they flooded the low-lying land with water and built floating greenhouses that are anchored to the ground. Dr. Kabat pointed out that the floating greenhouses have two benefits. The first and most obvious is that they are impervious to flooding and sea level rise. But the second and more surprising benefit is that the farm turned from a carbon-producing operation to a carbon negative operation. This is because the water once again permeated the peat-rich ground below (peat is one of the most efficient carbon sinks in nature) and because of the growth of water plants that are not harvested. The land area is still productive because of the greenhouses, but is now land that can absorb flood water and is a carbon sink.

Another idea that is already being realized is "floating neighborhoods". East of Rotterdam in the town of Maasbommel is a small neighborhood of floating houses that can rise and fall with the level of the Maas river, a feature that was successfully put to the test during winter flooding last year. And now an entire floating village is being built near Schiphol International Airport in Amsterdam. Dr. Kabat envisions major population centers from Amsterdam to the Hague and Rotterdam evolving into what he calls "hydro metropoles," sort-of amphibious cities.

In addition to the new floating communities, cities such as Amsterdam and Rotterdam are thinking about their old canal systems not only as beautiful relics from centuries past but as important parts of their modern infrastructure. Updating or even expanding the canal systems will help to accommodate the extra water from sea level rise and increased flooding, and are also being used for transportation with services such as water taxis. Rather than being seen as a nuisance, architects and city planners are looking at water within the cities as a necessity. Dr. Kabat sees that as a "basic change in philosophy—safety now guaranteed by accommodating water rather than keeping it away."

Deep into my discussion with Dr. Kabat I asked him if this attitude of seeing climate change as an opportunity for innovation wasn't defeatist in some way, assuming that any efforts at mitigating and stopping climate change are futile? And isn't this a dangerously pessimistic attitude? He acknowledged that this indeed is a danger, and emphasized that looking for solutions to the effects of climate change must not take our attention away from efforts to stop it.

But stopping climate change is a global problem. There is little the Netherlands can do to mitigate climate change other than to fiercely lobby the big carbon producing nations to cut their emissions, something the Dutch have been doing for years. The Netherlands is a small country with a relatively small carbon footprint. It has no automobile industry, so there are no Dutch automobile companies to lobby to make electric cars, for example. As Dr. Kabat points out "the Netherlands could become carbon neutral tomorrow but it wouldn't make any difference in terms of global emissions." In a very real sense the Netherlands is at the mercy of the big carbon emitters such as the U.S. and China.

The scientific community has advocated trying to stop global warming at plus 2 degrees from the current global average. But that would require an 80% cut in greenhouse gas emissions, and few if any countries will meet that requirement anytime soon. While Dr. Kabat believes strongly in continuing to fight for cutting emissions and mitigating the human causes of climate change, he remains steadfastly realistic when advocating what his country needs to do. He tells me gravely "I think we will have to face in the next century one of the highest emission scenarios we actually talk about, which as a consequence means plus 4 to 5 degrees in global warming."

A week later I visited the floating houses in Maasbommel, and as I walked along the banks of the water Dr. Kabat's chilling words still rung in my head. But I started to think that the best lesson the Dutch can teach the rest of the world is not floating greenhouses or amphibious cities, but rather their collective approach to the problem.

The center-right government of the Netherlands lead by prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende recently adopted all of the recommendations of the Delta Commission, an example of government trusting science that the United States and China could well learn from. And private corporations like Dura Vermeer are shouldering much of the costs of building experimental solutions like the floating greenhouses and neighborhoods. There is a sense that everyone—government, private enterprise, and citizens—has to chip in, to make sacrifices and investments in order to meet the challenges that lie ahead. This partnership between the public and private sectors, and the sense of urgency to deal with the problem now, is what the rest of the world needs in order to effectively tackle the crisis.

Julian H. Scaff is a filmmaker, environmental artist, and lecturer in media communications at Webster University in Leiden, the Netherlands. His film and media work can be seen at http://www.zoopraxiscope.com/ and his environmental artworks can be seen at http://www.jscaff.com/