The conception of public interest in Dutch flood risk management: Untouchable or transforming?

Abstract

The governance of flood risks varies considerably in different parts of the world. Obviously this is due to the nature and characteristics of flood risks, but in part governance approaches vary because of political differences in the nature of governance itself. What is ‘appropriate’ in this respect depends partly on the prevailing conceptions of the public interest in a country. By applying Alexander’s (2002) categorization of public interest to flood risk management practices in The Netherlands, we show that the strongly unitary conception of the public interest (a historic ‘flood risk safety for all’), is intertwined with a state-based, sector-based, hydro-technical governance and expertise system. Although this conception is very strong it is no longer self-evident. Because of changing conceptions of governance in general and because of the felt necessity to adapt to climate change, Dutch flood risk management is gradually changing. Increasingly, the Dutch government has to deal with more dialogical and utilitarian approaches to public interest in the governance of flood risks. The Dutch approach is rooted in community-based interests in flood protection and was centralized and rationalized during the 19th and 20th century. The current flood risk standards are based upon a coarse utilitarian benefit-cost analysis, but evolved into mostly a unitary idea of national safety materialized in law by statutory flood risk standards. The findings show that this unitary concept and status of the public interest of flood risk safety has not diminished; it must, however, increasingly take into account the importance of both processes of decision making (dialogues, deliberations) and neighboring public interests. We conclude that the Dutch conception of the public interest on flood safety is still strong but nevertheless gradually changing, not the least because of a general availability of the information and technology to calculate and differentiate risks.