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As China’s largest river basin, the Yangtze River Basin has the most mega reservoir groups worldwide. To protect the entire basin, the Central Government developed a system of joint operations of key reservoir groups in the Yangtze River Basin. This paper examines this joint operation system from a legal perspective and discusses its implementation as well as the challenges in practice. The following issues impede the effective implementation of the joint operation system: a lacking legal basis for the system, limitations related to the organizations that participate in the joint operations, limitations on the scope and objects of the joint operation system, and a lacking systematic structure for operation. This paper offers suggestions to improve the system.

Climate change is happening and it will have severe effects on human wellbeing and prosperity. These natural hazards will affect coastal, rural and urban areas. Besides effects on biodiversity and humans also property might be damaged or decrease in value. This requires disaster management, ranging from prevention to recovery. In order to manage the adverse effects, measures to increase resilience are necessary. These measures can be stimulated or done by the government, or by citizens themselves. This chapter focuses on the role of property rights in contributing to resilience. It discusses what property rights are—in common law and civil law systems, infringements of property rights, the remedies against these infringements and finally it reflects on the situation that natural hazards cause damage to property and different recovery mechanisms. The notion of property rights is placed in the wider context of justice.

Nature-based solutions (NBS) bieden veel kansen om de waterveiligheid te verhogen en tegelijkertijd natuurwaarden te versterken. In dit artikel worden zowel een aantal ecologische en juridische aspecten besproken als de consequenties van NBS in voorlanden tussen dijk en water, ten behoeve van het overstromingsrisicobeheer.

Climate adaptation and water management, in particular flood risk management (FRM), in the Netherlands are strongly integrated policy domains. The observed and expected effects of climate change in the Netherlands will create a variety of pressures, particularly in relation to sea-level rise, increasing river discharges and changing precipitation patterns. Effective FRM is therefore stressed as a critical precondition for any future development and living in the Netherlands, both on the short and longer term. Partly influenced by the adoption of the European Floods Directive in 2007, the urgent need for climate adaptation is driving major developments in Dutch FRM, the most striking of which is the diversification and a partial shift in flood risk management strategies (FRMSs). This is best reflected in the adoption of the Dutch Delta Program as a basis for the development of long-term strategies for both flood and drought risk management, which inter alia initiated the development of the policy concept of ‘multi-layered safety’ and the adoption of a risk-based approach under the development of Dutch FRM. Whereas the focus in the Netherlands until recently was mainly and successfully on minimizing the probability of flooding (‘the fight against water’) and preparedness in case of a flood threat, in the course of time other strategies aimed at mitigating the effects of potential floods have gained a more prominent position (‘living with water’). As a result, FRM measures increasingly demand more space and more diverse actors became involved in Dutch FRM. This has increased complexity and fragmentation in the responsibilities for Dutch FRM, which resulted in an increasing need for communication, coordination and collaboration between different public and private actors in order to secure the effectiveness of FRM. These developments form the backdrop to this article, in which we analyse this broadened Dutch system of FRM and flood risk regulation. After having presented relevant facts and figures about flood risks in the Netherlands in Section 2, we describe the flood risk management strategies (FRMSs) stemming from the Floods Directive and the way in which these have been implemented in the Dutch FRM system in section 3. In Section 4, we discuss current observed developments and shifts in strategies, as well as relevant challenges these have brought about. In a synthesizing Section 5, the paper ends with a discussion of its findings. One of our key conclusions is that the development of innovative approaches in Dutch FRM is promising, but requires increased attention for challenges regarding coordination and cooperation, public participation and the availability of legal instruments to make spatial claims on privately owned land.

Bodemdaling is in Nederland een groot maatschappelijk probleem, met name in de laaggelegen veengebieden. In dit artikel wordt beschreven dat een andere, meer doeltreffende aanpak van bodemdaling nodig is om de nadelige gevolgen van bodemdaling zoveel mogelijk te beperken, maar dat er tegelijkertijd juridisch-bestuurlijke knelpunten bestaan voor zo’n aanpak. Eerst wordt geschetst wat de (menselijke) oorzaken van bodemdaling zijn en welke problemen bodemdaling veroorzaakt in landelijke en stedelijke veengebieden. Vervolgens gaat het artikel verder in op de juridisch-bestuurlijke knelpunten die verhinderen dat een andere, meer effectieve aanpak van bodemdaling tot stand komt: bestuurlijke versnippering en de nadelige gevolgen daarvan (gebrek aan bestuurlijke regie en een gebrekkige afstemming van taken en bevoegdheden) en het veelal ontbreken van een bodemdalingsdoelstelling. Tenslotte worden enkele voorstellen gedaan waarmee deze knelpunten mogelijk kunnen worden weggenomen.

Sandy coasts represent about one-third of the global coastline and are among the most valuable and most vulnerable areas for humans and many other species. Socio-economic development and climate change impacts, together with traditional engineering for shore protection, have pervasively resulted in coastal squeeze, thereby threatening coastal life and economic activities, and the very survival of coastal ecosystems. In the past, the responses to problems such as land loss, coastal erosion and flooding were primarily reactive, through gray engineering solutions, with little interest shown in the ecosystem processes impacted by coastal armoring. In recent decades, coastal management strategies have become more diverse, embracing traditional engineering solutions alongside ecosystem-based measures. Even so, many of these new strategies still fail to meet sustainability criteria. Inspired by Per Bruun’s “The Ten Demands for Coastal Protection” from 1972, this article attempts to consider these changes and knowledge acquired since the 1970s, in order to tentatively formulate “Ten Commandments” for the sustainability of sandy coasts in face of climate change and socio-economic development. As such, the paper offers a new vision and briefly summarizes good practices for the management of sandy coasts, particularly useful for those who, at whatever level of influence, could contribute to the long-term realization of this new vision.

The sustainable use of precious water resources requires effective water management. In the European Union, water management is mainly regulated by the Water Framework Directive (2000/60/EC), introducing an integrated river basin management approach. As a European Union (EU) directive, the legislation needs to be implemented in the Member States, entailing not only legal transposition but also application and enforcement. One major instrument introduced by the Water Framework Directive is the environmental goal achievement obligation of article 4 WFD, containing also a deterioration ban with several exemptions. We compare the transposition, application, and enforcement of the exemption of permanent deterioration (art. 4 (7) WFD) in the context of the environmental goal achievement obligation regime in Lower Saxony (Germany) and the Netherlands. The study rests on a comparative legal analysis of literature, river basin management plans, and jurisprudence. Although based on the same EU directive wording and case law of the European Court of Justice, the deterioration ban and the exemption of permanent deterioration are implemented rather differently. While the deterioration ban is predominantly understood as planning obligation in the Netherlands, it became an important permit requirement in Lower Saxony since the Weser ruling of the European Court of Justice.

In several countries, the transfer of legal rights to rivers is being discussed as an approach for more effective water resources management. But what could this transfer mean in terms of a healthy river? We address this question by identifying the ecological requirements for naturally functioning rivers and then explore the demands which these requirements impose on society, the current policy responses to these requirements and whether the transfer of rights to the river could facilitate the preservation of healthy freshwater ecosystems.

In 2015, China?s national government initiated a Sponge City Programme to address its urban flood issues. A sponge city is a city built around the concept of managing water in an ecologically sustainable way. The intention is to improve urban resilience through rainwater capture, storage and use. This article applies a four-mode governance framework to analyze the programme. It identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the programme implementation and provides recommendations.

Adaptation to climate change is gradually becoming accepted as one of the major challenges in regional and urban planning. However, the scope for options that make our societies less vulnerable to flood risks, disruptive quantities of rainwater in cities, or urban heat stress tends to be narrowed down, often implicitly, by the existing institutional context. Institutions reflect past choices made regarding the legitimate distribution of burdens and benefits between government and society of measures against weather-related calamities. Alternative options, like innovative dyke concepts, green roofs, or urban planning to reduce heat stress, would require political debate on the legitimacy of different arrangements and would take climate adaptation policy out of the technocratic 'comfort zone'. This article offers a framework of analysis for describing the institutionalized distribution of responsibilities for initiation, implementation, costs and liability for climate adaptation measures, and the shift in these that alternative options would entail. Furthermore, it offers four perspectives for assessing the legitimacy of present and alternative distributions. The framework is applied to the Dutch context in three cases concerning flooding, urban water drainage and urban heat stress.