Preparing a river for the future - the river Meuse in the year 2050

Due to a probable climate change higher decisive discharges rising from 3800 m 3 /s to 4600 m 3 /s - an increase of 20% - in the river Meuse in the winter periods are expected in the future. And floods which will occur more often than in our times. At the same time the demand for areas next to the river for other functions e.g. new buildings or agriculture increases. Due to these expected effects the government in The Netherlands has decided to start up a study in 2001 called "Integral examination of the River Meuse (IVM)". The objectives of this study are: Making an inventory of the effects of climate change on the river Meuse, investigation on spatial and technical measures for flood protection in the spirit of the principle "room for the river" along the river Meuse in The Netherlands, investigation on spatial and technical measures for flood protection in France and Belgium, inves- tigation of the possibilities to improve the spatial quality along the river Meuse e.g. for agriculture, living, work, recreation next to the river and combine different measures to an integral strategy to combine flood protection with an increased spatial quality. The results of the study show, that in a worst case the flood water level of the River Maas in the year 2050 increases with a mean of 0.75 meters. To compensate this effect measures such as retention, "green rivers", deepen or widen of the river bed, remove of obstacles or move of dikes - in total 160 measures - are combined in 3 different strategies. Theses strategies represent the whole range of possibilities from the spatial point of view and are "filled" with measures conform a special philosophy. For example "Concentration" represents a combination of greater measures (e.g. retention, deepen winter bed) which concentrate different functions along the river. Owing to this great intensive use of spatial unities with sharp limits are created, such as intensive agri- culture around cities and vital and compact cities with recreation areas. All these strategies can compensate the effect of climate change on the river Meuse as well as increase the spatial quality. Looking upstream over the border in the direction of Belgium and France it can be concluded, that small measures are very ineffective for great discharges for the river Meuse in The Netherlands. Only great barriers or retention areas far upstream would be effective but not possible to realize from the point of view of the Belgium of France society. Due to this one conclusion is to intensive the relation between the countries along the river Meuse to develop an transnational vision of the whole river basin.