The last stop of our PGS Netherlands trip was Arnhem, a city located on the bank of the Nederrijn river, which separates the Arnhem city center in the north and the floodplain area in the south, known as Meinerswijk. We biked along the cycling routes and past the “green river,” a side water channel the city dug in 2013 that runs through the floodplain (the name was to reflect the hard- and softwood forest that developed in the channel’s surroundings.) As part of the project to lower water level by 7 centimeters, the city also lowered the summer dike to increase Nederrijin’s discharge capacity and allow excess water to flow from Nederrijn into the green river during periods of high water [1].

        The Meinerswijk excavation project is emblematic of an ongoing shift in Dutch water management from keeping the water at bay to making room for water. While the Netherlands has a long history of building dikes and reclaiming land from the North Sea, the environmental movement in the 1970s forced the Dutch government to stop indiscriminately building dikes at the expense of landscape attractiveness and biodiversity. After a series of deadly floods hit Central Europe, India, the US and China in 2004, then-crown prince Willem Alexander announced, “The basis of the integrated approach [to water] lies in the age-old principle that people should follow the rhythm of the river and not the other way round. We must stop choking our rivers and instead give them more room.” Two years later, the Dutch government rolled out the 10-year “Room for the River” program – which encompasses around 30 projects similar to the one in Meinerswijk – to break the vicious cycle of building and reinforcing dikes. 

        The idea of making room for the river is nothing new; it is also easier said than done. Crown Prince Alexander’s speech was delivered at the Yellow River Forum hosted by China, whose own flood mythology claims that Yu the Great, a wise emperor from around 2000 BCE, tamed the Yellow River by channeling and draining water rather than containing it [2]. Two thousand years later, the Chinese negated their forefathers’ wisdom and tried to rise above nature, erecting the 185-meter-tall Three Gorges Dam that has endangered species, triggered landslides and displaced millions [3]. The new Dutch approach, by contrast, is to harmonize with rather than suppress nature. In particular, the Dutch preferred measures that would lower the water level, such as lowering the floodplain and dike relocation, to strengthening existing dikes. The Meinerswijk excavation project we visited is a case in point: the summer dike along Nederrijn is lowered in order to enlarge retention surfaces, while the land between the summer and winter dike is used for cattle grazing. 

        Moreover, prioritizing lowering water level means choosing mitigation over adaptation. The former means to actively prevent future climate accidents by addressing the root causes (i.e., by preventing climate change itself), whereas the latter accepts climate change as a given and only deals with its effects. While the two concepts are not mutually exclusive, the Dutch are assigning more weight to mitigation for obvious reasons. Consider dike reinforcement. It is a way of adapting to higher water levels and may keep people on the other side safe. But it also turns the country into a costly, ever-expanding fortress in which people quarantine themselves and, in the extreme scenario, can lead to monstrous infrastructure projects such as the Northern European Enclosure Dam, which would seal off the sealine stretching from France to Norway. 

        Across the Atlantic, however, the US still dedicates the lion’s share of attention and resources to adaptation. As Neta Crawford writes in The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War, the defense department responds to climate change by rebuilding bases after a disaster has occurred but falls short of reducing its fuel demand and improving fuel efficiency – despite being the largest institutional fossil fuel user in the US. Notably, the reconstruction of Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, which was destroyed by Category 5 Hurricane Michael in 2018, cost an eye-watering $4.3 billion. Of course, an optimal climate policy requires a mix of mitigation and adaptation [4]. But as damaged fighter jets and flooded runways in Florida show, ex-post adaptation is inefficient without ex-ante mitigation strategies in place. 

        The military and government lead the way in water management for two reasons. The first is that government-led research often leads to spin-off technologies for civilian uses. Another is that, as much as advocates for room for the river want to treat nature as an ally, a water crisis out of control would be an enemy that warrants the use of force, such as the deployment of troops for rescue missions. 
According to Fred Feddes, the military and government’s enormous resources and network of expertise – Rijkswaterstaat, as Feddes notes, also has its origin in military engineering corps – has caused worries that water management would be governed behind closed doors by technocrats. Such concerns are valid but overblown. Through our conversations with members of Kondor Wessels and Citizens’ Coalition, my impression is that Dutch water politics seems responsive to their constituents, at least on a local level. The Coalition, which wanted to keep Stadsblokken Meinerswijk housing-free, gathered enough signatures to initiate a veto-referendum in 2016 against the city council’s decision to allow housing construction on the floodplain [5]. Most local parties, including D66, United Arnhem and Arnhem Central agreed to respect the outcome of the referendum, which the Coalition ultimately lost by 32%-68% [6]. 

        During our visit in early March, the two sides were in the middle of a bitter fight over the legal basis of Stadsblokken Meinerswijk’s zoning plan, subject to review by the Council of State, an advisory body appointed by the royal family. Then on March 29, the Council approved the zoning plan, which allowed Konder Wessels to finally begin construction after 6 years. The developer claims that it would strike a balance between nature and recreation, but the Coalition insists that the plan would raise the water level for downstream residents [7]. While I sympathize with the Coalition for taking on a more resourceful opponent and fighting an unequal battle, the development plan only got the greenlight after soliciting and securing the buy-in from a majority of stakeholders: Arnhem residents, NGOs, municipality, city council, Rijkswaterstaat and the Council of State – no single actor had exerted arbitrary power over the trajectory of Stadsblokken Meinerswijk. While Rijkswaterstaat may operate from a perch insulated from political pressure, the everyday politics of Dutch water management is characterized by diverse voices and pluralism.