Flash Flood Breaker

European water crisis management project 

In November 2023, it was announced that the Interreg project Flash Flood Breaker has been approved by Interreg North-West Europe. In the project, 13 partners from the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, France and Ireland are working together to strengthen crisis management in the event of (imminent) large-scale flooding. Hoogheemraadschap Hollands Noorderkwartier is one of the partners in the project, which started in early 2024, and has a duration of four years. 

Flash Flood Breaker

A flash flood is a water flood situation that occurs within three to six hours as a result of heavy rainfall. The Interreg project Flash Flood Breaker investigates the practical possibilities of making crisis management in Northwest Europe more robust in the event of flash floods. Interreg is a European subsidy scheme for spatial and regional development. In the project, all partners are working to better prepare public emergency services, citizens and companies. This includes the development of crisis strategies and multi-disciplinary crisis plans, including possible measures that can be taken (by citizens). Work is also being done to improve flood forecasting and specific information campaigns are being prepared. Knowledge and experiences are shared within the Flash Flood Breaker platform so that the wheel does not have to be invented twice and the tools developed can be applied (inter)nationally. 

Contribution HHNK

Together with its regional partners, HHNK is developing and implementing a crisis plan for enhanced crisis management in a situation of (major) flooding in polder areas and storage basins. We are also testing internationally developed - AI-based - applications for forecasting and the added value for crisis decision-making of using real-time data collected by drones. We are investigating how to build polder communities to collectively respond to a flooding situation. As experts by experience - including after the large-scale flood of June 2021 - we have determined that it is urgent and necessary to strengthen our own crisis management organization and increase societal resilience so that we are better prepared for extreme weather events that are expected to occur more frequently due to climate change. To achieve this, we will establish cooperative partnerships between private companies and public (crisis) organizations for social resilience. We call this collaborative resilience. Finally, we are working on the development of state-of-the-art expert systems and serious games that help organizations recognize an impending crisis earlier and take appropriate action. This includes the development of early warning systems for extreme weather that are translated into impact forecasts and measures to minimize social disruption and harmful effects.

Interreg

Interreg is a European Union funding program that seeks to promote cooperation between regional areas in different countries.

In addition, a decision from the Province of North Holland was received as co-financing for the project.