Dossier
Flooding
The amount of extreme rainfall and its severity is increasing in the Netherlands and Western Europe. What is the reason for this and what can we do to limit nuisance? In this dossier you can find news, backgrounds and results of research on flooding.
Climate change is not only rising global temperatures, it also alters rainfall patterns. In the Netherlands we find that there are more and more floods by heavy rain. In urban areas, streets are more often flooded and it provides the necessary nuisance.
Changing rainfall patterns
Wageningen University & Research studies the causes of heavy rainfall and is looking for solutions to this phenomenon. For example, more green spaces in the city ensures that water can be drained faster into the ground. Storage of water is also important, because not only the number of heavy rains is increasing, also there are longer periods of drought.
News about flooding
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Climate Impact Monitor gathers data on the consequences of climate change
- Northwest Europe is experiencing an increase in extreme weather events, such as flooding, drought and wildfires. Extreme weather is strongly associated with climate change and has consequences for our health, cities, infrastructure, agriculture and nature. Researchers from Wageningen are working with Dutch governments and insurance companies to estimate the impact of extreme weather by gathering data in one digital environment: the Climate Impact Monitor. -
Floods multiply plastic waste in rivers
- Heavy flooding can cause entire villages and cities to be covered by water. A new study by Wageningen University & Research in collaboration with ECMWF and VU Amsterdam, recently published in Environmental Research Letters, shows that these natural disasters mobilise huge amounts of waste. In some cases, the amount of plastic waste floating in rivers increased no less than forty times. -
Draining and storing water due to climate change
- The Netherlands is designed for the rapid draining of superfluous rainwater. The dryer summers that result from climate change, however, also call for the storage of water. Wageningen researchers collaborate with water managers to discover what steps may be taken to increase water availability for agriculture and nature. For example: deploying deep-rooted crops, soil life or smart dams and drains. Want to know how the Netherlands can make the change?
News 2012-2020
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Multi-annual research on climate adaptive planning for elevated sandy soils
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Arable farming prepares for extreme drought and flooding
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Near-daily discharge estimation in high latitudes from Sentinel-1 and 2: A case study for the Icelandic Þjórsá river
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Millions of farmers depend on meltwater from Himalaya glaciers
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Estimating river delta change with Google Earth
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Increase in extremes calls for intensive river monitoring
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Prediction of floods and droughts is an effective measure for adapting to climate change
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Adaptive circular cities
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Fascinated by algorithms and downpours
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Climate-proof planning for flood-prone areas
Projects about flooding
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Multifunctional use of flood defences
- PhD research by Richard Marijnissen -
Climate-Proof Cities: Practical guidelines for climate-proof cities
- Cities are vulnerable to the effects of climate change. The most efficient way to make cities more climate-proof is through tailored relatively small and local measures, which can often be carried out parallel to major maintenance or renovation work. These were the findings of a final report published by the Climate-Proof Cities research programme. -
Consulting stakeholders in Myanmar
- A World Bank-funded project helped to understand ‘state of the basin’ of the Ayeyarwady river in Myanmar. We analysed the present use of the river and what threats people perceive. -
Towards a climate-active region
- Towards a climate-active region: a foresight study on constraints and opportunities for climate-active policy in Arnhem, Lochem and Zutphen. -
Blue Green Dream
- The Adaptation Support Tool supports nature-based climateproofing of urban environments, with a co-design approach and quantified output. The tool was succesfully applied in frontrunner cities in Europe, USA and Africa. -
Towards Water Smart Cities
- Cities around the world face great challenges with water. We have to rethink the way we deal with water in our cities and need to (re)design cities from drained cities to green, resilient and circular cities, so called Water-Smart Cities. -
CLIMAX: Climate Services Through Knowledge Co-Production
- A Euro-South American Initiative for Strengthening Societal Adaptation Response to Extreme Events. -
PhD K Raaphorst - Look Closer: Semiotic reflection on the visual communication of multifunctional flood defence landscape designs
- Within landscape architecture and planning, visual representations of landscape designs constitute the primary means of communication. Despite this reliance on the visual, there is no visual research approach available that allows a critical reflection on how these representations function within planning and design processes. Within this PhD project, such an approach is being developed by combining theory and methods from disciplines such as communication science, art history, and political geography. Concepts such as semiotics (Barthes, Eco, Derrida), simulacra (Baudrillard), and power/knowledge (Foucault) are used to describe how the visual communication (i.e. creation and interpretation) of landscape designs influences the design process.
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Publications about flooding
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Mansholt lecture 2023: Nature based approach for Europe
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Assessing land elevation in the Ayeyarwady Delta (Myanmar) and its relevance for studying sea level rise and delta flooding
Hydrology and Earth System Sciences (2023), Volume: 27, Issue: 11 - ISSN 1027-5606 - p. 2257-2281. -
Flood pulses and fish species coexistence in tropical rivers - a theoretical food web model
Environmental Biology of Fishes (2023), Volume: 106, Issue: 8 - ISSN 0378-1909 - p. 1785-1796. -
A scoping review of coastal vulnerability, subsidence and sea level rise in Ghana : Assessments, knowledge gaps and management implications
Quaternary Science Advances (2023), Volume: 12 - ISSN 2666-0334 -
Plant communities can attenuate flooding induced N2O fluxes by altering nitrogen cycling microbial communities and plant nitrogen uptake
Soil Biology and Biochemistry (2023), Volume: 185 - ISSN 0038-0717 -
Tundra Browning in the Indigirka Lowlands (North-Eastern Siberia) Explained by Drought, Floods and Small-Scale Vegetation Shifts
Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences (2023), Volume: 128, Issue: 7 - ISSN 2169-8953 -
Temporal variability in organic amendment impacts on hydro-physical properties of sandy agricultural soils
Soil Science Society of America Journal (2023), Volume: 87, Issue: 4 - ISSN 0361-5995 - p. 963-984. -
Beyond landscape experience : A systematic literature review on the concept of spatial quality in flood-risk management
Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water (2023), Volume: 10, Issue: 5 - ISSN 2049-1948 -
Modelling the climate change impacts on river discharge and inundation extent in the Magdalena River basin–Colombia
Hydrological Sciences Journal (2023), Volume: 68, Issue: 9 - ISSN 0262-6667 - p. 1286-1300. -
An Overview of Permanent Grassland Grazing Management Practices and the Impacts on Principal Soil Quality Indicators
Agronomy (2023), Volume: 13, Issue: 5 - ISSN 2073-4395
Related dossiers
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Greenery in the city
- A green environment has many advantages. It has a positive effect on people's health and contributes to the quality of life in a neighbourhood. Companies like to settle in a green environment and real estate is generally more in demand, which strengthens the economic growth of a city. Together with partners, Wageningen University & Research has been researching the effects of a green city for years. -
Urban climate
- A green environment is essential for a resilient climate and a sustainable environment in the city. It reduces air pollution, provides water storage, dampens noise and cools in warm periods. For example, the cooling of hot air in the city can be done by the strategic construction of open areas. In this dossier you can find news, background and results of research on urban climate. -
The Netherlands in 2120
- Climate change, urbanisation, biodiversity, rising sea levels, extreme weather and increasing food production: these are just a few of the factors that help shape the spatial planning of the Netherlands. There appears to be a need to look to the future. With these factors in mind, what will the Netherlands look like a century from now? Wageningen University & Research has drafted a vision on what it believes a future-proof Netherlands could look like in 2120.