Climate Variability and Change—Hydrological Impacts (Proceedings of the Fifth FRIEND World
Conference held at Havana, Cuba, November 2006), IAHS Publ. 308, 2006, 180–185.
Impact assessment of measures in the upstream part
of Dutch basins to reduce flooding
ERIK QUERNER & MENNO RAKHORST
Alterra, PO Box 47, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands
erik.querner@wur.nl
Abstract Flooding in the northern
part of The Netherlands has caused serious economic threats to densely populated
areas. Therefore a project has been carried out in a 1200 km2 area to assess
the retention of water in the upper parts of river basins as a way to reduce
the downstream flooding. The physically-based groundwater and surface water
model SIMGRO was used to model the hydrology of the basins. The model was
calibrated using discharges and groundwater levels. Scenarios of measures to
assess the possibility of retaining water in the upper parts of the basin were
defined and tested. One measure was the retention of higher discharges using
culverts or gates, the other was to make the streams shallower and thereby,
increase flood plain storage. The analysis indicates that holding water in the
upstream parts of the basins proved to be feasible and can result in significant
reductions of peak flows.
Key words drainage basin; rainfall;
evapotranspiration; groundwater; surface water; modelling; river basin;
scenario