Climate extremes and cascade failures challenge Dutch crisis response
Climate change is making Dutch crises more complex. Periods of heat, drought and wildfire can now happen at the same time and for longer periods. A new study (PDF) looks at what this means for crisis response in the Netherlands. It shows how such events can cause chain reactions in vital infrastructure, create structural shortages of people and equipment, and blur the lines between local and national responsibilities. These findings are highly relevant for organisations that depend on continuity of services, including financial institutions.
How do climate threats trigger cascade effects?
The study combines literature with a “lived scenario” exercise. Participants from safety regions, infrastructure operators and national crisis bodies worked through a scenario with weeks of drought, an intense heatwave and a fast-moving nature fire near the Amsterdam Water Supply Dunes and Zandvoort. In this scenario, drought leads to low river flows, restrictions on irrigation and cooling water, and more hazardous goods on road and rail. Heatwaves shortens working times for responders, affects bridges, rails and roads, and raises health risks. The wildfire then damages a power substation, causing local power failure that later cascades into telecom outages and problems for hospitals and care institutions.
These linked events show how dependent Dutch society is on electricity, telecoms and mobility. When power fails, telecom networks stop within a few hours. When roads and rail are blocked by fire, heat or maintenance, emergency services cannot reach critical sites, and repair teams cannot restore services. The authors note that many crisis plans still assume normal accessibility and do not fully reflect these dependencies between sectors such as healthcare, energy, transport and water.
Why this matters
The study concludes that combinations of climate threats make vital sectors more vulnerable and increase the chance of system-wide stress. Long-lasting heat and drought, together with multiple incidents, create structural scarcity of staff, equipment and infrastructure. Crisis organisations may no longer be able to respond to all incidents, even when legal or social expectations remain high. This raises difficult choices about who is helped first, which areas receive backup power or cooling, and where to accept longer outages.
For financial institutions, these dynamics translate into higher physical climate risk. Power, telecoms, transport and water are core to the economy and to the operations of banks, insurers and their clients. Cascade failures can interrupt business for longer than a single weather event, reduce asset values, and increase default risk for companies that depend on just-in-time supply chains or continuous production. Health impacts, evacuations and social unrest can affect labour availability, tourism income and local commercial activity.
Need for integrated crisis and risk planning
A key finding is that organisations still approach climate threats mainly per incident type and from their own mandate. Dependencies between sectors remain largely invisible, and national and regional actors have different expectations of each other. This leads to uncertainty over when to scale up, who decides on the use of scarce resources, and who communicates what to the public. The authors stress the importance of scenario-based exercises, thinking in capabilities rather than single incidents, and making explicit choices under scarcity.
The study recommends making the consequences of specific climate extremes explicit for crisis response, developing strategies for long and hard-to-predict threats, and paying attention to social inequality and vulnerable groups in heat and drought.