Climate change is making problems with excess water, heat, drought, and flooding more likely. This results in risks for areas such as the economy, health, and safety. It is of paramount importance for the Netherlands to adapt to these changes. An important way to do this is the structuring of our urban and rural areas in climate-resilient and water-robust ways. The Delta Programme is working on this challenge under the heading of ‘spatial adaptation’.
In 2021, more attention than usual was paid to the topic of spatial adaptation because of the floods in Limburg, and the extreme heat and forest fires in large parts of Europe. The KNMI’s Climate Signal ’21 (based on the findings of the IPCC) states that climate change has led to consequences for people and nature worldwide that are partly irreversible. The limit of a rise in temperature of 1.5 degrees will already be reached in about ten years from now if the planet does not change its ways. In 2023, we were again confronted with the severe impacts of weather extremes throughout Europe.
A lot of hard work is being done but the road to making the Netherlands climate-resilient is still long. Most provincial and municipal authorities are actively working on integrating climate adaptation in the environmental visions. A hopeful sign is that there is now an intense focus on climate adaptation thanks to the work done in recent years in the 45 working regions of the Delta Programme for Spatial Adaptation.
If we do nothing, the damage in our cities may rise to more than € 80 billion between now and 2050. There could also be major damage in rural areas. Torrential rainstorms and prolonged precipitation cause problems with excess water. At other times, there can actually be damage caused by water shortages. Heat causes problems with the expansion of railway tracks, bridges and other infrastructure. Heat also affects the health of vulnerable people such as the elderly and young children. Climate change will require a change in mindset: climate-resilient and water-robust planning must be an unquestioned component of spatial development/redevelopment.
Delta Decision and Delta Plan
Spatial adaptation is one of the three themes of the Delta Programme. The ultimate objective and the joint ambitions have been set out in the Delta Decision on Spatial Adaptation. The core of that decision is that the Netherlands will be water-robust and climate-resilient by 2050. The national government has set out the substance of this Delta Decision and climate adaptation-related spatial policy in the National Water Programme (NWP), the National Environment Planning Vision and the National Climate Adaptation Strategy (NAS). The implementation of the Delta Decision is described in the Delta Plan on Spatial Adaptation. It is a step-by-step approach in a cyclical process from risk analysis to measures and emergency response. The organisation of the Delta Programme for Spatial Adaptation will be strengthened by paying more attention to the monitoring and structural financing of measures in two working groups.