The current flood risk assessment framework in the Netherlands aims at ensuring a nation-wide protection level with a long-term vision. It assumes that future river bed level changes will not pose negative effects on flood safety and it adopts a fixed-bed assumption. However, the river bed level shows a strong spatial and temporal variability, where bed aggradation trends could lead to higher water levels in the future. Recent measurements in the Dutch Rhine have shown both bed degradation and aggradation in different river sections along the lower river domain. This raises questions to what implications does future river bed level changes have on flood safety in the Netherlands and whether the current fixed-bed assumption has adverse connotations to it.

The objective of this MSc thesis is to study the impact of river bed level changes on flood safety in the Netherlands. To achieve this, a framework for incorporating large-scale bed level changes into flood risk assessments is developed and applied under the current Dutch context. The implications on the long-term and short-term flood safety are analyzed separately, as fundamentally different approaches and uncertainties relate to the flood safety standards derivation and for the periodic safety assessment in the Netherlands.

In the long-term, I propose to incorporate morphodynamic modelling scenarios into the flood safety standards derivation process to account for future bed level changes and their long-term uncertainties. Modelling scenarios should include future river discharge, sea level rise, river maintenance and the evolution of river bifurcations, as they represent main drivers in the long-term river bed response in the Netherlands. Based on existing long-term morphodynamic modelling studies of the Rhine River, it is estimated that the extreme water levels decrease over the upper Waal, but increase over the lower Waal by 0.15 m and 0.30 m in 2050 and 2100, respectively. These scenarios consider that river dredging is not maintained after 2025.

In the short term, I propose to incorporate the analysis of the recent river bed level behaviour into the safety assessment process to account for its uncertainty in the near future. Based on yearly bed level measurements in the Waal from 2005 to 2020, decreasing and increasing water level trends have been identified in the upper and lower Waal, respectively, with increments in the order of 0.05 m. This is small in absolute terms, but significant compared to the accuracy level of the hydraulic loads used in the safety assessment process. As a consequence, these increments can have important economical implications on dike reinforcement programs.

In summary, this thesis provides a framework incorporating large-scale river bed level changes into the current flood risk assessment framework in the Netherlands. Furthermore, it quantifies the impacts of bed level variability on flood safety in the Waal River. In general, the fixed-bed assumption in the current flood safety framework is a conservative, or safe, assumption for the hydraulic loads’ calculation in the upper Waal. However, it may underestimate the future hydraulic loads in the lower Waal and impose adverse conditions on flood safety.

The Kampereiland is an island located at the south eastern part of the IJsselmeer in the middle of the Netherlands. This island serves a purpose to lower water levels in the IJssel- and Vechtdelta during high water, by being inundated. This inundation is meant to result in lower water levels in the IJssel near Kampen. However, the flooding of the Kampereiland is a complex case. There are numerous stochastic variables that are used to determine the water levels, as well as breaching possibilities and a compartment structure which is present on the Kampereiland. All these aspects have influence on inundation of the island. In this thesis research, the flooding of the island is analysed, during multiple different types of high water scenarios, as well as with a variation of breaches or no breaching. This is all done while taking the compartment structure on
the Kampereiland into account.

To analyse how the Kampereiland floods, three main types of highwater scenarios have been analysed. These types are stormdominated scenarios, which are defined by high wind speeds and low discharges. The second type of high water is the discharge dominant scenario. The high water levels in these scenarios are reached by high discharges from the Vecht and the IJssel rivers, in combination with low wind speeds. Lastly, a number of extreme events have been analysed, to give a worst case perspective of the flooding of the Kampereiland. In these scenarios, high wind speeds coincide with high discharges from the two rivers, resulting in extreme water levels in the Ketelmeer, ZwarteMeer and in the Ganzendiep.

Each of the analysed scenarios have outside water levels exceeding the crest height of the flood defenses surrounding the Kampereiland. The scenarios have been analysed for multiple breaching cases. Three different breach locations have been determined. The locations have varying crest heights, type of flood defense (overflow resistant or non overflow resistant), type of high water (storm dominated or discharge dominated) and different hinterland compartments. Each scenarios has then been used to run the model to determine water levels in each compartment. This is done for situations without a breach, a single breach or two breaches at one location. The determination of the water levels is calculated by the use of spillway formulas.

The results show that the Kampereiland mainly floods from west to east. Storm dominated scenarios lead to high water levels in the Ketelmeer, leading to overflow from here. In scenarios up to 32 m/s wind speeds without breaches, the flooding is contained to the compartments to the west of the N50. The entire island floods once water levels increase due to wind speeds of 37 m/s and higher. Adding breaching into the storm dominated scenarios, the results are shifted. Now the evaluated scenarios with 32 m/s also lead to flooding
of the entire island. This case still leads to less high water levels on the Kampereiland than the scenarios of 37m/s without breaching, but every compartment is inundated.

The discharge dominated events are contained in the Willem Meyer- and Stikkenpolder. This is due to the presence of the old flood defense, which contains the flooding in cases with and without breaches.

Finally, the extreme events flood the majority of the Kampereiland, similarly to the stormdominated scenarios. The water levels that occur in the Zwarte Meer and Ganzendiep are higher during the extreme events. They also last longer than in the storm dominated scenarios. This results in a small inflow from the north
and southeast, while the western side of the Kampereiland rapidly fills up. Breaching during these extreme events leads to higher water levels when the breach occurs in the overflow resistant part of flood defense 225. The rising velocities in the west are also the highest in this case. Eastern compartments have higher rising velocities in case of breaching in flood defense 101 (along the northern boundary).