6
DELTARES, SEPTEMBER 2014
7
DELTARES, SEPTEMBER 2014
A
merica and the Netherlands are very
different. But there are striking local
similarities, thinks Dale Morris, who
has been working for so long with
‘those crazy Dutch people’ that he
spoke Dutch for this interview. New
York has massive urbanisation close to the water.
In San Francisco, international companies like
Google are thinking about surrounding their offices
with dikes. Norfolk, home to the largest military
port in the world, is threatened by sea-level rise.
Miami is just above sea level, and it is located on
a porous, soft subsurface. And, of course, there is
New Orleans, with its history of hurricane damage,
in the middle of the Mississippi delta. ‘Miami is just
like Amsterdam; New Orleans is the mirror image of
Rotterdam. You don't have tropical storms, but the
main differences are social.’
You sent a man to the moon. Why hasn't
America already gone into action to manage
the impact of sea-level rise?
‘I give a lot of presentations in the Netherlands
and that question comes up all the time. You
really can't understand why President Obama is
not ordering dikes to be built. But you forget that
you have already been forced to get to grips with
this problem for centuries. The Netherlands is a
densely-populated country. You have a talent, not
just for building flood defences, but also for using
space in multi-functional ways. There is plenty of
room in America. In recent decades, large numbers
of people have moved into areas that are susceptible
to flooding near New York and in Louisiana. Getting
those people to move is a very sensitive political
issue but it is possible. So our thinking about these
problems is different.’
Have Katrina and Sandy in America
made people think differently about
water management?
‘The attitude to water management in America
is clearly changing. We tend not to think that far
ahead, and to tackle problems when they crop
up. Here, there's a new climate challenge round
every corner: landslides, droughts, tornadoes,
hurricanes… We are great at disaster management.
It is only now that sea-level rise is becoming
In Washington, the American economist
DALE MORRIS
is a strong
advocate of the Dutch Water Management Network. In Louisiana,
Florida and California, Deltares experts are pitching in to help
combat the water. How can the Dutch approach help the Americans?
‘We are good at disasters; you are strong in the long term.’
BY PJOTR VAN LENTEREN
‘WE ARE
EACH OTHER'S
LABORATORY’
