Guidelines for standardised stress tests

In collaboration with a wide range of parties, the Delta Programme for Spatial Adaptation (DPRA) has developed these guidelines for standardised stress tests. The Guidelines comprise instructions for conducting stress tests and help to interpret and implement the outcomes. They feature:

• Background information on the climate themes;
• Instructions for locating and utilising public basic nationwide information with a view to exploring and outlining potential threats and consequences;
• Uniform points of departure and instructions for compiling customised information, in order to identify threats and consequences in more detail;
• Recommendations for implementing the outcomes of the stress tests.

In addition, the Guidelines point out choices to be made and assist in making such choices. For example: Which aspects require calculation of the financial consequences? To what extent, and why? Based on what information? How do you deal with uncertainties? What needs to be documented? And once results have been achieved, how can these be used and for what purposes must they not be used?

What is different in the second round of stress tests (2025)?

The first round of stress tests was conducted in 2018/2019. Many results of this first round can be found on the Stress Tests Monitoring Map. The new round, which will start in 2025, will afford the DPRA working regions greater freedom of choice vis-à-vis the first round. They will now be at liberty to determine their own focus areas when substantiating the DPRA ambitions and to specify any additional information required to conduct efficient dialogues and develop specific agendas for adaptation efforts. The point of departure will be the identification of threats and consequences related to the traditional DPRA themes of waterlogging, heat, drought and flooding. However, the working regions may also go a step further in the identification of consequences for specific domains, such as health, building foundations, biodiversity and water quality.

The previous round of stress tests has already yielded information on vulnerabilities. In many cases, such information is still relevant and useful. Any bottlenecks coming to the fore at that time that have not yet been addressed will also come up during a new test. An important aim of the second round of stress tests is to further improve the quality and completeness of the information on vulnerabilities. The DPRA Stress Tests Quality Assessment Framework (see box) can be used to ensure this added value in the new stress tests. This framework enables the DPRA working regions to check the current value, reliability and completeness of the information gathered from the previous round of stress tests. For example, it may reveal that in certain areas, sufficient information is available on waterlogging bottlenecks, whereas information on drought is lacking. Thus, in the new round of stress tests, more attention can be focused on this knowledge gap.  The second round must, in any case, be used to improve and complement information, in order to enable optimum risk dialogues.

As in the first round, basic nationwide information and uniform points of departure have been provided that facilitate the implementation of stress tests and ensure the inter-comparability of the results obtained by various agencies. The information has been improved and updated on the basis of the current KNMI’23 climate scenarios.

Another new feature is the increased attention being paid to the interconnection between threats and consequences at different scale levels. For example, on the theme of waterlogging, supra-regional stress tests have been conducted with effect from 2024, exploring the consequences of large-scale precipitation events. The information obtained supplements the outcomes of the DPRA stress tests. Comparing the outcomes of these stress tests will enable a more accurate identification of the threats and consequences affecting different scale levels and provide insight into their interconnectivity.