Canadians are facing yearly flood disasters while governments, builders and insurers debate about keeping our homes safe. We all know the weather is changing, so why are we still building where we shouldn’t? Are there examples of more effective responses to the growing threat of flooding? 

It’s illuminating to compare Canada’s efforts at preparing for and responding to flooding to those in the lowlands of the Netherlands. Dutch people consider it in the national interest to protect their cities from high water, yet few Dutch homes have overland flood insurance. Instead they rely on carefully managed water storage, barriers and dikes. 

Their federal government, provinces and municipalities work with private landowners as well as elected water authorities, which are responsible for flood protection watershed by watershed. Climate modelling from the national Meteorological Institute is integral to all planning around water management. The Netherlands has also created a national risk map that clearly shows no-development zones. 

Finally, the Dutch have applied cost-benefit analysis to flood-protection projects since 1901 to demonstrate that risk reduction is far cheaper than cleaning up after floods. 

Two examples illustrate Dutch collaborative measures.    

The government spent the equivalent of $575 million in the city of Nijmegen to reduce flood risk by making room for the River Waal to expand during wet weather (360 million euros). This now-completed project required years of negotiations between governments and landowners before construction started. Effective collaboration resulted in much-improved flood resilience as well as a rebuilt waterfront and new amenities. The changes saved the downtown during high water in 2023. 

Despite its efforts, the Netherlands is not immune to climate disruption. A black swan rainstorm in July 2021 resulted in the first major flood in the Netherlands since 1995. The town called Valkenburg-aan-de-Geul (Valkenburg on the Geul River) in the province of Limburg suffered badly. Despite their reputation for flood resilience, the Dutch were taken by surprise by this unprecedented deluge.  

How have they adapted since? Do the authorities in this region have a strategy to prevent future flooding? Their response is educational. 

Cities on larger rivers that flow through the whole country, like the Waal, are managed by the government and don’t flood. (Dutch people will add the word “yet.”) The smaller Geul River is managed by the province and regional water authority. But due to the scale of damage in 2021, the Dutch government eventually stepped in and helped with the cleanup.  

Valkenburg’s mayor and residents we interviewed for a federally funded study told us the question now is who will pay for measures to prevent flooding in the future. After more than three years, these difficult negotiations continue. 

Dutch flood-risk reduction is integrated across governments and embedded in culture.  

For centuries, citizens have shown respect for water by prioritizing flood resilience over urban and provincial politics. The Dutch trust science-backed policies to keep them safe and there is a culture of negotiated risk management.  

In Valkenburg, as in the rest of the Netherlands, the federal government, the provinces, the regional water authority and the municipality are working together to build flood resilience.  

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High and dry: The rising tide of flood risks and the insurance dilemma 

Canada has its own history of severe flooding. But in contrast to the Netherlands, and perhaps due to a complicated and inconsistent patchwork of overlapping jurisdictions and regulations, it seems municipal authorities continue to allow construction in risky areas.  

Disaster researchers have deemed this practice “flood amnesia.”   

An analysis by the Canadian Climate Institute suggests more than 540,000 homes could be built by 2030 in flood-prone zones if Canadian cities continue current development patterns. First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities will be especially hard hit as they are often located in remote areas and have few resources to minimize flood risks.  

Part of the problem is that housing and environmental crises are competing for attention.  

For example, since 1946 Ontario’s 36 watershed-based conservation authorities have worked closely with municipalities to define and prevent development in flood zones, drastically reducing flood risk over decades. 

As a result, Ontario has the lowest federal payouts per capita for disaster recovery of all provinces and territories in Canada, a 2016 report from the Parliamentary Budget Office shows (Table 2-4, page 20).  

But in 2023, the provincial government reduced funding for its conservation authorities and stripped them of key powers — ostensibly to streamline housing permit approvals.  

Ottawa’s efforts to guide urban development have leaned toward carrots rather than sticks.  

Examples include publishing a land-use guide for flood-risk areas and providing more than $3 billion to a fund for disaster mitigation and adaption. But in 2024 the government committed to $6 billion in infrastructure dollars directly to municipalities in an attempt to speed up housing construction.  

Now Ottawa is promising new publicly accessible flood maps and is working with insurers on a plan that would shift the responsibility and burden to high-risk properties for overland flooding. This could come at the cost of high and steadily increasing premiums for homeowners. These latter efforts resemble sticks more than carrots. 

They also raise other concerns. Would lenders deny mortgages to the 10 per cent of Canadian homes that insurers say can’t be covered? How would such an insurance scheme disrupt the real-estate market or influence urban expansion?  

Dutch and Canadian experiences suggest some options for more effectively responding to flood risk in our country. 

First, Dutch water authorities are generally trusted by that country’s provinces, municipalities, homebuilders and citizens to identify risks and remedies, including no-development zones. Ontario’s 80-year-old network of conservation authorities (admired by Dutch flood experts in our interviews) could be a model for organizations across Canada to develop safeguards over the long term while also protecting water quality and ecosystems. 

Ontario’s conservation authorities have a proven record of keeping housing out of risky areas with geographically specific approaches to watershed management. With appropriate funding this model could be used in other provinces to remedy Canada’s piecemeal approach to watershed management. 

Water authorities informed by reliable climate projections, and with input from Indigenous Peoples, would have local knowledge necessary for cost-benefit analysis, which could counteract the human tendency to discount the value of something that doesn’t happen — like a flood prevented.  

Second, federal government authorities across the Netherlands co-ordinate and help plan for flood protection. Our cities would benefit from a similar model in which Ottawa would bring stakeholders together from all levels of government, Indigenous communities and the private sector to work on safeguards for existing and planned developments. 

But the federal government must earn trust if it is to convene all interested parties to develop a concerted resilience strategy. Canada could benefit from the experiences of the Dutch, known worldwide for their generosity with technical and governance advice on flooding. 

Our response to flooding must be an ecology-first, all-of-society approach detached from four-year election cycles. Canadians seem to be increasingly aware, as are the Dutch, that urban flooding is a national socioeconomic issue, which is leading to more federal influence in municipal affairs.  

However, it’s still heresy in Canada to suggest that the federal government dictate no-development zones. Yet Ottawa has the resources and mandate to bring all parties together on this tough topic. Perhaps it’s time to reinvigorate the federal National Disaster Mitigation Program and entrust Public Safety Canada with supporting key public and private-sector groups who have a stake in flood resilience.  

There is one final challenge. In the Netherlands, as well as in Canada’s Indigenous communities, there’s a cultural tendency to take as long as is needed to find a solution everyone can live with. However, at the level of municipalities and neighbourhoods, Canadians struggle to build consensus on flood risk. 

Culture is a tough thing to change, but it’s time for us to learn to work together and make room for the rising water from storms spawned by climate change.  

Gary Martin, PhD, and Ruth McKay, PhD, are concluding a three-year, federally funded study of flood risk and housing politics in Canada and Europe. The authors thank Dr. Evalyna Bogdan for comments on an early draft of the article.