News

Researchers from the Institute of Environmental Studies, Dutch Association of Insurers, and Deltares show that municipal adaptation measures, such as green infrastructure, can lower insured damages from intense short-duration rainfall in urban neighbourhoods by between €1,375 and €5,648. The study also confirms that higher daily precipitation correlates strongly with higher insured damages, underscoring the climate-driven exposure to cloudbursts. This provides strong empirical support for encouraging insurers, banks and municipalities to co-invest in adaptation measures as part of urban climate-resilience strategies.

The European Parliament has endorsed simplified sustainability and due diligence rules for large companies, reducing obligations for smaller firms. Reporting will now focus on businesses exceeding 1,750 employees and €450 million in turnover, while only corporations above €1.5 billion will face due diligence requirements. The reforms include a new EU portal with templates and guidance to streamline compliance. Lawmakers say the changes will ease administrative burdens and boost competitiveness while maintaining core sustainability goals.

Research from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and the Climate Impact Atlas show that extreme windstorms remain a major hazard, especially in coastal and northern regions in the Netherlands. Using KNMI climate scenarios, it indicates that severe winter storms could become more frequent or intense even if average wind speeds remain stable. The maps also reveal how wind risk threatens infrastructure and buildings, supporting regional adaptation planning. The findings underscore the importance of integrating wind resilience into climate and spatial policy.

A Dutch research team has shown that hailstorms are a major and rising financial risk for the country’s farmers. The study links radar data with insurance losses to identify storms with hailstones larger than 1.5 centimetres as the most damaging. It finds that risk is concentrated in the south and east, where intense summer storms are most common. The findings will help improve forecasting and strengthen insurance and adaptation planning for Dutch agriculture.

The European Parliament rejected the mandate for simplified sustainability-reporting and due-diligence rules under the “Omnibus I” package, with 318 votes against and 309 in favour. The rejection delays discussions until a full Parliament vote on 13 November, before formal negotiations with the Commission and Council can start. The package aims to reduce administrative burdens for companies under the CSRD and CSDDD frameworks, but lawmakers indicated concerns or differing priorities.

A new open-access chapter in Geology of the Netherlands: Second Edition provides an up-to-date overview of natural and human-induced land subsidence across the Netherlands. Written by TNO and other institutions, it reviews key processes, monitoring techniques, and modelling tools, and highlights the growing role of governance in addressing subsidence impacts. The authors also discuss new drivers linked to the energy transition and call for coordinated policies and improved data to manage one of the Netherlands’ most persistent geohazards.

A new EIOPA report warns that biodiversity loss could become a major financial risk for Europe’s insurers. It finds that while climate risk is now commonly addressed, biodiversity remains poorly integrated into risk management. The watchdog urges insurers to improve data, metrics, and scenario analysis to capture nature-related exposures. It also calls for closer alignment with EU sustainability policies and more nature-positive investment strategies to safeguard long-term financial stability.

A new CPB report estimates that Dutch households face expected annual flood losses of around €290 million, with risks concentrated in low-lying provinces such as South Holland and Zeeland. The analysis reveals strong regional and income disparities: lower-income households are more vulnerable to damage, while wealthier ones bear higher absolute losses. CPB warns that uninsured losses could deepen inequality and calls for clearer risk information, stronger insurance mechanisms, and improved adaptation policies to enhance financial resilience.

The Delta Programme Safety (DPV) method commonly used in the Netherlands estimates flood risk per levee as if each segment acts independently, ignoring emergency responses and how one breach affects system-wide pressure—leading to overestimated risks that may raise insurance costs and lower property values. A new approach, the BREACH-METHOD, improves realism by using expert judgment and existing flood data to build a large set of possible flood events, grouped into nine probability levels. It assigns annual probabilities to each scenario while accounting for system interactions, emergency actions, and multiple breaches. When applied to the Dutch Delta, BREACH reduces estimated national flood probability from one-in-three years to about one-in-fifty, with sharper reductions—up to 40 times lower risk—in regions like the Rhine and Lake IJssel, offering more reliable data for financial decision-makers.

Researchers analysed Dutch home insurance claims alongside very detailed wind and rain measurements to build a new way of predicting storm damage. Their model shows that ignoring rainfall can miss 5 % to 57 % of the damage when storms drop heavy rain, and that more expensive homes tend to lose a smaller share of their value. By supplying the full set of model details and confidence ranges, the study offers insurers and planners a clearer tool for estimating losses from increasingly wet winter storms.