LC 00086

By looking at the the activities, actors and methods/approaches used, this section will provide a better understanding of the the implementation process of the MLS approach. We will look describe the point of departure, describe who was involved (when, why and how) and what key decisive moments there were.

Point of departure of FRM strategies

Stakeholders involved

·        Province of Zeeland

·        Waterboard Scheldestromen

·        Municipality Hulst

·        Ministry of Infrastructure & Environment

·        TenneT

·        Enduris

·        Veiligheidsregio Zeeland (Zeeland Safety Region)

·        Nelen&Schuurmans (consultancy firm)

·        More participants of Vital & Vulnerable Infrastructure (Akkermans and de Kubber, 2017)

Roles of key actors

The Province of Zeeland was the main coordinator of the project activities.The electricity grid owners role was to provide information related the electricity assets and to consider the knowledge gain in their asset management plans. The Safety Region role was to provide knowledge and collaborate with the Province in crisis management. The role of the Municipalities was to collaborate in the process and embed the knowledge into the spatial planning policies. The National Government, in particular the Ministry responsible for electricity, i.e. the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy,  is responsible to take measures and prevent the vital services from flooding and its role is to embed the policy advise into the next Nationale Omgeving Visie (“The national environment vision”) 2021 (personal communication pilot manager electricity grid, January 16th, 2019).

Main activities

The pilot activities refer to the data collection, data analysis and dissemination of the recommended measures.

Data collection:

Stakeholders were contacted through phone calls, emails, individual meetings, group meetings, workshops. The first stakeholders contacted were: the Safety Region, the electricity grid owners and the Consultancy firm. The Safety Region has knowledge on crisis management and a large network of actors. The electricity grid owners provide information about the electricity network and the location of the electricity assets. The Consultancy firm provides technical knowledge on GIS and coordinates the stakeholders’ participation. The Province of Zeeland is the coordinator of the pilot implementation process. It was a challenge to communicate the low flood risk (1:4000 years) and get the attention of the electricity grid owners. The confidentiality of the (geo)information of the assets was a specific point of attention.  A leading team was formed for the project including 4 people, one representative from each organisation. This team met every month to discuss the progress of the activities, decide on next steps, and conduct the vulnerability study (personal communication pilot manager electricity grid, January 16th, 2019).

The data used is (Nelen & Schuurmans, 2018):

• flood scenarios (1:4000 years) from the National Database on Flood Scenarios;

• rain induced flood data until 2050 from the Climate Effect Atlas (http://www.klimaateffectatlas.nl)l; ground levels (AHN2);

• location of the assets - a very important step in the process. The team had to sign a confidentiality agreement with the electricity owners to ensure that the geographical location of the electricity assets will not be published in the future. This step built trust among the parties and improved the collaboration (personal communication pilot manager Reimerswaal, February 12, 2019).

• critical height based on the type and year of construction of each station.

Flood hazard maps

The interactive 3Di model was used to make the flood maps using as an input the previous data for vital infrastructure with different flood return periods (1:400, 1:4000, 1:40.000 and 1:400.000 years) (Nelen & Schuurmans, 2018).

The GIS modelling was carried out by the consultancy firm in 2 stages (personal communication pilot manager electricity grid, January 16th, 2019):

-         The first stage the impact of dyke breaching was studied.

-         In the second stage, the cascading effects of a dyke breaching to other vital services (Telecom hubs, nursing homes, institutions, fire stations and pumping stations) was analysed for the Kloosterzande area. At this stage, the stakeholder from the gas, drinking water electricity companies, water board and municipality of Hulst were involved.

Data analysis

The risk label method was used to study direct and indirect effects of power outage failure in the network. The critical water depth considered at risk is between 20-80 cm. The risk label was calculated based on the flood risk, the importance of the electricity and the number of people affected (higher risk in cities). The risk label method was applied to the whole Province and the analysis resulted in 23 assets at high risk considering direct and indirect failure (cascading effects) of the medium-voltage network. Even though an area with electricity grid failure is not flooded directly, can still be affected indirectly by water (personal communication pilot manager electricity grid, January 16th, 2019).

Data validation

The results were presented and validated by experts during a workshop on 22^nd of February, 2018. The experts involved were actors from: Electricity companies (Enduris and Delta), Provincie Zeeland, Municipality Hulst, Nelen & Schuurmans (consultancy firm), Ministry EZ, Waterboard Schelderstromen, DNWG (infrastructure network), Safetyboard Zeeland (Zeeland Safety Region). It was discussed the electricity outage for households and the cascading effects to other assets. Moreover, the results of the analysis using the risk label method was presented and validated during the workshop (Nelen & Schuurmans, 2018).

Dissemination of results

The materials produced are flood hazard maps, other GIS files and a report.

Referenties

• Enduris, Enduris, 5 juni 2019.
• Transnational Monitor and Evaluation report FRAMES, FRAMES, FRAMES, 8 juni 2020.
• Risk label method EN, Nelen, Nelen, 11 juli 2020.
• Water Resilient Electricity Network Zeeland Final report, Nelen en Schuurmans, Provincie Zeeland, 25 juli 2018.
• Baseline monitor Zeeland, Schumacher, E. and A. Leskens, Provincie Zeeland, 31 oktober 2017.