Room for the River

In the Netherlands, Room for the River (Dutch: Ruimte voor de Rivier) is a government design plan intended to address flood protection, master landscaping and the improvement of environmental conditions in the areas surrounding the Netherlands' rivers.

The project area is in the Netherlands, but morphological impacts extend upstream into Germany, portions of France and Belgium, and may reach to the Rhine headwaters in Switzerland over time.

The design presents an integrated spatial plan with the main objectives of flood protection, master landscaping and the improvement of overall environmental conditions.

Measures in the plan include: placing and moving dykes, depoldering, creating and increasing the depth of flood channels, reducing the height of the groynes, removing obstacles, and the construction of a "Green River" which would serve as a flood bypass.

By 2015 the Rhine branches will safely cope with an outlet capacity of 16,000 cubic metres of water per second; the measures implemented to achieve this will also improve the quality of the environment of the river basin.

Increasing the depth in the floodplain must occur due to the collection of sediments in the area after years of regular flooding.