Dutch Water Management

Great article on the culture of Dutch water management in Fast Company - Against The Tide.  From the article:

"The Dutch love data. Fluitman got his curves because of it. And a Dutch sense of caution has compelled everyone working in the field of flood control to collect and analyze immense amounts of it to make a watertight case. The government has mapped by air, to astonishing detail with laser and radar, the entirety of the nation's topography. That information has inspired one of the most promising--and exportable--new innovations: 3Di, a cloud-based system that can simulate the effects of a rainstorm or a levee breach, storm surge or a water-main break. "The Netherlands is very conservative. We think we can solve everything with a bit of sand," says Jan-Maarten Verbree, who heads IT at Nelen & Schuurmans, the water-focused consultancy behind 3Di. "But we say that with a bit of IT, you can increase safety even more.""