Samenvatting

Uncertainties about climate change are a major incentive for the Dutch government to communicate frequently about risks related to water safety. In September 2008, the 'New Delta Committee' even presented several coping strategies to safeguard the low-lying Delta of The Netherlands far into the next century. The government assumes that increased high water risk awareness and behaviour in society, based on a risk-based approach, is an important factor for sustainable future living with water and thus made this into the spearhead of policy. However, the main part of Dutch society still lives in a flush of victory. The Delta Works symbolize the victory over the water; The Netherlands is safe. The government doesn't succeed satisfactorily to realize high water risk awareness and behaviour in its society, notwithstanding years of campaigning. Cultural sociologists Heems and Kothuis demonstrate by means of a discourse analysis of public campaigns that government communication on high water safety is not only entangled but also creates confusion. Reason of the entanglement in communication is a breakthrough of the taboo on publicly speaking of a flood disaster as a realistic scenario. The confusion obstructs the Dutch government to bridge the gap in perception between itself and society and to achieve its policy objectives.