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Comment by apexalpha | Hacker News Reader

It's a good read but... I don't see the whole point about "From a Dutch mind-set, climate change is not a hypothetical or a drag on the economy, " is a bit weird.

Climate doesn't matter here. 1/3rd of the country is already under sea level TODAY. The billions we spend on engineering and developing water defense structures have no relation to our believes about climate change. We are ALREADY beneath sea level!

Look at this https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/5a/75/f8/5a75... Gives you a perspective.

Hell, we even have our own little Trump, denying Climate change and blaming all our faults on Moroccans in stead of Mexicans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geert_Wilders

Some more reading for those interested: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_control_in_the_Netherlan...

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How does climate change not matter? It matters more. The country is already vulnerable to floods, which are more likely when weather gets more extreme, and the higher the sea rises, the higher and stronger the dikes and other defenses need to be. And costs of dikes go up with the square of their height, so our costs to protect against further sea level rise are going to be higher than those of other countries.

There's already a lot of effort being put in improving dikes and other coastal defenses. Of course this was already happening before rising sea levels were a serious concern, but now it seems that instead of being nearly done, we've barely started. There's no end in sight for the next couple of centuries.

Yes, it's a fight that we're used to, but that doesn't mean it doesn't matter.

The point of the article simply seems to be that because this is a fight we have experience in, we can make money by exporting our expertise.

If you visit a place like IJmuiden you'll see that over the last couple of years the various waterworks have been heightened by several meters to account for higher seas. This is a direct response to climate change, the fact that a good part of the country is below sea level definitely adds to the sense of urgency felt to do something about this but we still have 1953 well present in our collective memory to warn us against being complacent.

I always explain NL to visitors as a machine rather than a country. The moment you stop the machine or stop maintaining it the sea will begin to reclaim it.

Climate does matter here!

We are expecting a lot more heavy rain fall and rising rivers. That's also why we spend billions on inland water management. In our area they are even discussing "garden pavement taxes".

So I don't agree with you that there is no relation to our believes about climate change.

Sorry could you explain what a "garden pavement tax" is? It sounds interesting but googling gave nothing.

Because of urbanization, the paving of gardens, the water does not sink into the ground over large areas. The sewage systems are having difficulty coping with this. Because of this they're thinking about taxing the paving of gardens.

There's a municipality planning to do this starting January 2018.

https://www.gemeente.nu/ruimte-milieu/minder-groen-tuin-bete...

Tangential, but:

I'm wondering what the ratio of tiled-over private gardens is to tiled-over public spaces (sidewalks, streets, etc.) which are omnipresent in the NL. I'd guess that the poor drainage relating to the public spaces is much greater than the poor drainage due to private tiled gardens.

I don't know about the Netherlands specifically, but in general the amount of land area devoted to public spaces is very small, albeit intensely developed, compared to residential land, which is vast and less intensely developed.

I think residences in the US and residences in Europe are quite different, and especially the Netherlands are quite densely populated. I would say that the area that's used in the US to have a driveway would work quite well in the Netherlands to have a big garden (yard).

Yeah it is quite different in the NL. Private space is much more limited compared to public space. Cities are dense, peoples' private gardens are small if they exist at all, public spaces are abundant. This isn't the land of sprawling residential space.

Sure, but streets need to be paved. Backyards not so much.

Here's an English article.

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2017/07/brabant-villag...

I think pasta is talking about this:

https://radar.avrotros.nl/nieuws/detail/belastingvoordeel-vo...

Translated:

People who replace their garden tiles with grass, have to get a tax premium.

That's what Lambert Verheijen of the water board "Aa and Maas" is pleading for. This was reported thursday by BNR. Because there is too much paving, the water doesn't sink into the ground well enough and the risk on flooding increases. Verheijen got inspiration in Germany, where a comparable premium is already in place.

Sounds like a disincentive for paving with impenetrable ground cover. Rainfall is not absorbed when the ground is paved. Instead, it collects and increases flash flood risk. To compensate for this, the rainfall collection and pumping infrastructure must be more robust. Perhaps this tax will be spent on such improvements?

Not European but I'll take a guess. Hope this helps:

In the UK (and maybe elsewhere in Europe) a "garden" is what people in the US would call a "yard"; an open space near a residence. Often, but not necessarily covered in grass or plants.

"Garden paving" would mean covering it with something impervious to rain, such as concrete or asphalt.

So a "garden pavement tax" would be a penalty for people who choose to cover up soil with an rain-blocking material, to encourage them to use an alternative which allows the ground to soak up the rain.

As an example, in my town there is a public park in a flood plain, its driveways are made with "permeable pavers"[1] which are basically thick brick tiles with holes in them. They allow the rain to go through to the ground instead of building up and flooding the parking lot.

[1]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=permeable+paver&iax=1&ia=images

We have similar drainage fees here in Houston, based on the amount of impervious ground cover on the property. We've had a lot of flash flooding in the past 20 years because of the growth of neighborhoods and commercial properties with large parking lots on what used to be prairies on the perimeter of town. New commercial construction typically has to have catchment basins, permeable concrete, or other runoff mitigation strategies. There is, however, a lot of legacy properties which don't handle their runoff, and an outdated storm sewer system, so we still have problems.

The more you seal off your land with buildings, or pavement, or even patio tiles, the more the rain will wash off your land and flood people who live downhill from you. So the Dutch pay closer attention to the issue than other nations.

Don't forget the sewers.

Current investments in the river and coastline protection ("Ruimte voor de Rivier" and "Zwakke Schakels") are done not only to protect for the current conditions, but also for the anticipated climate change.

As an example, the second large expansion for the port of Rotterdam, Maasvlakte2, is at 6m above sea level. The previous one is at 5m. That added one meter has cost a few hundred million euro's extra, but money well spent in my opinion. The foundation of the Maasland Barrier is designed for a storm surge of 6m above mean sea level, even though the gate is currently at 5m above. Thats why it can easily be upgraded.

So even though not much is changing in the general publics perspective, for large infrastructure that takes 10 years to prepare and design, and is built to work for 50-100 years, taking into account (expected) climate change has been a necessity for many decades now.

On another note, here is a nice point cloud visualization of the entire country: http://ahn2.pointclouds.nl/

Interesting visualization, but I don't understand it.

I went to Ede, Gelderland (where I live), and while the city itself is mostly blue, the Hoge Veluwe just NE of the city is suddenly yellow (or is it green? I'm color blind), indicating that it's ~45m above sea level. That can't be right, the Hoge Veluwe is on the same level as Ede. What am I misreading?

Edit: I think I understand what's happening: the land immediately east and north of Ede is forest, so I guess the increased elevation in the point cloud is trees.

No, the Hoge Veluwe actually is that far above sea level.

http://elevationmap.net/hoge-veluwe-national-park-netherland...

Definitely not the tree tops. That's also why it is called 'Hoge Veluwe' to begin with. (Hoge being Dutch for 'high').

The highest point is 110 m above sea level.

you can zoom in to individual tree level. I just did, and can confirm this data includes trees. Also make sure to adjust the colormap min and max to your area of interest. This dataset is the official height measurement of the Netherlands (of a few years ago), made with LIDAR. So it should be accurate to within a few cm.

That's funny, I also went to Ede on the map (I have family that lives there.) The Hoge Veluwe is actually a mix of yellow and green, but the actual trees are yellow.

If you put the quality on Ultra the trees are suddenly visible as trees.

Also, looking at the scale: Ede is around 20-25m above sea level, the ground of the trees is around 30m above sea level, and the trees are around 45m above sea level. So the trees are around 10-15 meters tall, fairly consistently.

And about half of the country is less than 1m above sea level. The 1953 storm created a surge of 5.6m above mean sea level, about 3.6 above highest tide. Delta Works protects only to about 4m above highest tide. Katrina created a storm surge of up to 8.5m. Luckily tropical hurricanes don't get to the North Sea. Yet.

Well, you do have a barrier island named Great Britain to protect against cyclone surges.

Yes, but the channel being funnel shaped actually causes the water to be substantially higher at times than it would have been otherwise.

>It's a good read but... I don't see the whole point about "From a Dutch mind-set, climate change is not a hypothetical or a drag on the economy, " is a bit weird. Climate doesn't matter here. 1/3rd of the country is already under sea level TODAY. The billions we spend on engineering and developing water defense structures have no relation to our believes about climate change. We are ALREADY beneath sea level!

It's quite simple.

The argument is not that the Dutch believe more on climate change because they have already dealt with it in the past.

Rather it is that for the Dutch the climate change is not a hypothetical, but a very real danger, being as they are already under sea level, that they are more inclined to believe in it and see precautions taken against it as necessary and not as a "drag on the economy".

I think he means the Dutch mindset is more: We don't care whether climate change is happening or not* . We are already below sea level and have been building solutions for our situation for decades. We are not "living" climate change already, we are living in a country below sea level.

*We (I am also Dutch) might care about climate change, but that is independent of this infrastructure we already need anyway. Why is this article talking about what we think about climate change only to go into the infrastructure we need regardless of climate change. Article is great but the title is way too clickbait, the content of this article are unrelated of what the Dutch think about climate change..

>Why is this article talking about what we think about climate change only to go into the infrastructure we need regardless of climate change.

Because the infrastructure you "need regardless of climate change" is needed because of reasons that make your country much more sensitive to ocean levels rising from climate change.

As thus, the (not related to climate change) need for such infrastructure that you had, makes climate change all the more real and dangerous for you than for someone in Montana.

It's like a driver with unstable breaking mechanism in their car (due to it having sustained some previous damage) is much more sensitive to the alert of a snow storm coming.

Not because it was some prior snow storm that caused their issue, but because their issue makes it much more dangerous to drive on a snowy road.

Yep, thing that's often overlooked is that the Waddenzee is pretty much a lost cause though, with all the one-of-a-kind flora and fauna that lives there. If the sea rises a couple more centimeters the area will no longer be dry during ebb tide. Go "Wadlopen" while you still can!

On the one hand it's a shame to lose the interesting fauna, on the other hand, the area has been in constant flux over the ages. On December 14th, 1287 the entire area changed in a single day, for example [0]. So there is no reason to expect the current layout to be permanent. Perhaps what we will get next is pretty too.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Lucia%27s_flood

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