Integrated drought risk assessment to support adaptive policy making in the Netherlands
- 1Department of water resources management, Deltares, Delft, the Netherlands
- 2Stratelligence, Leiden, the Netherlands
- 3Rijkswaterstaat, Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, Lelystad, the Netherlands
- 1Department of water resources management, Deltares, Delft, the Netherlands
- 2Stratelligence, Leiden, the Netherlands
- 3Rijkswaterstaat, Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, Lelystad, the Netherlands
Abstract. Adaptive policy-making to prepare for current and future drought risks requires an integrated assessment of policy actions and combinations of those under changing conditions. This entails quantification of drought risks, integrating drought probability and socio-economic consequences for all relevant sectors that are potentially impacted by drought. The investment costs of proposed policy actions and strategies (various actions combined) can then be compared with the expected risk reduction to determine the cost-effectiveness. This paper presents a method to quantify drought risk in the Netherlands under changing future conditions and in response to policy actions. It illustrates how to use this information as part of a societal cost-benefit analysis and in building an adaptive long-term strategy. The method has been successfully applied to support decision making on the Netherlands’ national drought risk management strategy as part of the National Delta Program for climate change adaptation.
Marjolein Mens et al.
Status: closed
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RC1: 'Comment on nhess-2021-407', Anonymous Referee #1, 18 Jan 2022
This article presents the results of a significant effort to develop an integrated risk-based approach to evaluate the costs and benefits of water management and policy decisions with respect to droughts. This is a timely example of the application of such a framework as many water managers are currently performing similar drought risk and impact analyses and turning them into specific (climate adaptation) actions.
As this article illustrates selected use cases from a complex drought risk assessment framework and a larger body of work in a relatively short article, care should be taken to provide enough details or references in the methodological sections, make sure terminology for e.g. the scenarios is used consistently and references to analyses or results that are not discussed in detail are omitted or discussed in more detail.
More specific comments are included in the pdf in Supplement.
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AC2: 'Reply on RC1', Marjolein Mens, 31 Jan 2022
We thank the reviewer for the positive feedback and constructive comments to improve the manuscript. We will revise the manuscript according to the suggestions made and provide a point-wise rebuttal later. Below we provide a first author response to the main comments. Referee comments are repeated in bold.
Overall comment. As this article illustrates selected use cases from a complex drought risk assessment framework and a larger body of work in a relatively short article, care should be taken to provide enough details or references in the methodological sections, make sure terminology for e.g. the scenarios is used consistently and references to analyses or results that are not discussed in detail are omitted or discussed in more detail.
It is true that the manuscript discusses only a selection of the results of a larger study. We will carefully check whether methodological details and references are sufficient for the reader to understand the results, and that references to analyses that are not discussed will be omitted.
Main comment in pdf. Why exactly were these 5 policy actions selected? Can they be considered representative for the range of policy actions in the "extensive list"?
We selected five policy actions for this paper from an extensive list of about 150 policy actions. They serve as an example for the applicability of the risk assessment framework. We therefore chose actions that fall into either of two main categories of drought risk policy actions (reduce demand or increase supply) and that have an effect on national drought risk. Furthermore, we omitted local actions and actions aimed at research (e.g. local pilot studies). The presented approach is less suited for local measures that require detailed system knowledge and do not affect regional or national water distribution. We will clarify this in the revised manuscript.
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AC2: 'Reply on RC1', Marjolein Mens, 31 Jan 2022
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RC2: 'Comment on nhess-2021-407', Anonymous Referee #2, 24 Jan 2022
I think that this is a very good paper, well structured, based on robust analyses and methodologies, and reaching interesting and substantial conclusions. Objectives are clear; literature analysis is wide and exhaustive; presentation and explanation of the model is clear as well; data, outcomes, discussion and conclusions are meaningful and presented in a clear and concise way.
Authors made a great, and successful, effort to combine and join different approaches and techniques to identify and estimate impacts, and to measure costs and benefits, building an integrated framework for drought risk assessment. Â
- AC1: 'Reply on RC2', Marjolein Mens, 31 Jan 2022
Status: closed
-
RC1: 'Comment on nhess-2021-407', Anonymous Referee #1, 18 Jan 2022
This article presents the results of a significant effort to develop an integrated risk-based approach to evaluate the costs and benefits of water management and policy decisions with respect to droughts. This is a timely example of the application of such a framework as many water managers are currently performing similar drought risk and impact analyses and turning them into specific (climate adaptation) actions.
As this article illustrates selected use cases from a complex drought risk assessment framework and a larger body of work in a relatively short article, care should be taken to provide enough details or references in the methodological sections, make sure terminology for e.g. the scenarios is used consistently and references to analyses or results that are not discussed in detail are omitted or discussed in more detail.
More specific comments are included in the pdf in Supplement.
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC1', Marjolein Mens, 31 Jan 2022
We thank the reviewer for the positive feedback and constructive comments to improve the manuscript. We will revise the manuscript according to the suggestions made and provide a point-wise rebuttal later. Below we provide a first author response to the main comments. Referee comments are repeated in bold.
Overall comment. As this article illustrates selected use cases from a complex drought risk assessment framework and a larger body of work in a relatively short article, care should be taken to provide enough details or references in the methodological sections, make sure terminology for e.g. the scenarios is used consistently and references to analyses or results that are not discussed in detail are omitted or discussed in more detail.
It is true that the manuscript discusses only a selection of the results of a larger study. We will carefully check whether methodological details and references are sufficient for the reader to understand the results, and that references to analyses that are not discussed will be omitted.
Main comment in pdf. Why exactly were these 5 policy actions selected? Can they be considered representative for the range of policy actions in the "extensive list"?
We selected five policy actions for this paper from an extensive list of about 150 policy actions. They serve as an example for the applicability of the risk assessment framework. We therefore chose actions that fall into either of two main categories of drought risk policy actions (reduce demand or increase supply) and that have an effect on national drought risk. Furthermore, we omitted local actions and actions aimed at research (e.g. local pilot studies). The presented approach is less suited for local measures that require detailed system knowledge and do not affect regional or national water distribution. We will clarify this in the revised manuscript.
-
AC2: 'Reply on RC1', Marjolein Mens, 31 Jan 2022
-
RC2: 'Comment on nhess-2021-407', Anonymous Referee #2, 24 Jan 2022
I think that this is a very good paper, well structured, based on robust analyses and methodologies, and reaching interesting and substantial conclusions. Objectives are clear; literature analysis is wide and exhaustive; presentation and explanation of the model is clear as well; data, outcomes, discussion and conclusions are meaningful and presented in a clear and concise way.
Authors made a great, and successful, effort to combine and join different approaches and techniques to identify and estimate impacts, and to measure costs and benefits, building an integrated framework for drought risk assessment. Â
- AC1: 'Reply on RC2', Marjolein Mens, 31 Jan 2022
Marjolein Mens et al.
Marjolein Mens et al.
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