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4 Sep 2008
Unit:
Wageningen UR
Number:
P055
The report of the Delta Committee, headed by Cees Veerman, has been formally presented to Prime Minister Balkenende. Prof. Pavel Kabat of Wageningen University is one of the authors. In the introduction to the report, the 'second' Committee referred emphatically to the 'first' Delta Committee, which was established after the North Sea flood of 1953. The Committee stressed thereby the importance of a national approach to deal with the consequences of climate change.
Pavel Kabat: “The central question that we asked ourselves as a Committee is: how are we going to ensure that our country will remain an attractive place in which to live, work and invest for many future generations? The Netherlands must become resilient to climate, and must be secure against flooding. But this concerns more than water security alone. It also concerns sustainability, including the relationships between security and living and working conditions, agriculture and nature, landscape and infrastructure. And last but not least, the energy supply. Our recommendations are based not only on the threats to our security (we believe that security must be improved by a factor of 10, because the current standards are from the 1960s), but also on the opportunities for the future, resulting in an improvement in the quality of our living environment.”
The Committee believes that we must take account of a rise in sea level of between 0.65 and 1.3 metres in 2100, and 2 to 4 metres in 2200. This includes the predicted subsidence of the land surface. Although this concerns the possible upper limits, the Committee believes that a serious water security policy must take account of these extremes. Pavel Kabat: “Measures must be sustainable and effective for a long period. Measures that we take now must not hamper our activities in the future. If we invest now while keeping all possible scenarios in mind, our country will remain a safe place to live for centuries to come.”
In its report, the Committee proposes a large number of concrete measures for the North Sea coast (coastal expansion is preferred above creating new islands in front of the coast), the Wadden Sea region, the province of Zeeland and the South Holland islands, the river region, Rijnmond and the IJsselmeer region. In its proposals, the Committee calls for an integral approach based on a Delta programme that must be legally anchored in a new Delta Act. The Committee estimates the cost of the programme at approximately €1.2 billion to €1.6 billion per year until 2050, thereafter declining to €0.9 billion to €1.5 billion per year. The financing can be assured by establishing a Delta Fund that will be supported by natural gas revenues, among other sources.
The report features a major contribution from Wageningen, which is based on an integrated approach where the quality of land use is related to climate change. This contribution is logical in view of the membership of the Committee, which includes a number of current and former Wageningen staff and Wageningen alumni: Prof. Cees Veerman, Prof. Pavel Kabat, Prof. Louise Fresco, ir. Ineke Bakker, ir. Andries Heidema and Dr Jaap van Duijn.
In his commentary on the report on behalf of the stichting Kennis voor Klimaat (Climate Expertise Foundation), Prof. Pier Vellinga stated that the insights of the Committee are clear and visionary. “The report provides inspiration for the research that has the aim of making the Netherlands climate resistant. The report also brings up new expertise issues. Wageningen UR wants to tackle these issues in its research, together with Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, TNO, Deltares, Utrecht University, VU Amsterdam and the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research. The cooperation between these partners is excellent, which is very beneficial because these are major questions that are too diverse to be studied by a single institute.”
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