How is the probability of flooding increasing?

The probability of flooding is mainly increasing as a result of the rising sea level and increasing river discharge volumes. The paragraphs below provide more details on how the probability of flooding is increasing, due to the rising sea level and due to increasing river discharge volumes.

Read more on how sea level rise increases the probability of flooding

Read more on how increasing river discharge volumes increases the possibility of flooding

Small probability of flooding from the sea or major rivers

In protected areas, the risk of flooding is fairly low, as the safety standards for primary flood defences have been tightened. Primary flood defences protect our country against water from the North Sea, the Wadden Sea, the major rivers, and the IJsselmeer and Markermeer lakes. These flood defences will be reinforced until 2050 in order to meet the new standards. However, should a primary flood defence system fail nonetheless, the consequences may be detrimental, as the diagram below shows.

This diagram comes from the report Klimaatrisico's in Nederland: de huidige stand van zaken (PBL, 2024). Here you can see that flooding from the sea occurs less than once every 1000 years but has high impact, and that flooding from rivers occurs once every 100 - 1000 years and also has high impact.

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