ABSTRACT
The residents in the river regions of the Netherlands lived through anxious moments when in 1993 and 1995 the water levels were extremely high and the dikes just managed to hold. A quarter of a million people had to be evacuated. Extremely high river discharges are expected to occur more frequently in the future and for this reason it was decided to ensure that the rivers would be able to discharge the possible larger volumes of water without flooding. In 2007, the Central Government of The Netherlands approved the Room for the River Plan.
