en.Wedoany.com Reported - The Hague, Netherlands, released a coastal management vision covering up to 2100 and beyond at the end of June 2026, centered on a plan called "City Behind the Dunes." The plan aims to cultivate a dune belt approximately 200 meters wide along the Scheveningen coast through continuous sand replenishment and dynamic dune management, transforming coastal protection from a one-time project into a decades-long structural need.
As the only major Dutch city directly on the coastline, The Hague's plan serves as an important case study for testing how high-density urban coastlines can adapt to sea level rise without concrete walls. The plan draws on the experience of the nearby Zandmotor project, which deposited approximately 21.5 million cubic meters of sand in 2011 at a cost of around €70 million, and was deemed successful after a decade of evaluation. The Scheveningen section is the most challenging part of the entire coastline to defend, with its fixed boulevard space and a densely populated, economically valuable hinterland lacking the natural dune buffer of rural coasts. The new plan proposes developing a new dune system seaward, pushing the coastline outward and thickening it, rather than simply maintaining its current position.
National projections indicate that by 2100, sea levels along the Dutch coast could rise by approximately 30 centimeters to 1.2 meters, with faster melting of the Antarctic ice sheet potentially bringing it closer to 2 meters. The Hague has taken a proactive policy stance, seeking to incorporate local priorities into national decision-making before the 2027 update of the National Delta Programme. The vision is described as a strategic direction rather than a fixed plan, allowing the city to secure a place in national flood protection planning.
The commercial substance of the plan lies in the long-term procurement demand created by continuous sand replenishment. Since the 1990s, the Netherlands has maintained its coastline through periodic sand replenishment, and sea level rise will increase costs over time, shifting sand replenishment from an occasional project to a structural procurement category. Ports still require hard infrastructure protection, and The Hague city government acknowledges that the Scheveningen harbor may eventually need storm surge barriers or lock systems, consistent with the Dutch Delta Works tradition of "soft defenses first, hard defenses second."
Noor Ikkar, the city councilor responsible for climate adaptation, noted that The Hague's unique position as the only major city on the coastline brings multiple values such as recreation and commerce, but also faces the challenge of sea level rise. The local business community takes a pragmatic approach to the plan: the chairman of the Scheveningen Boulevard Entrepreneurs Association stated that exploring urban safety behind the dunes is an important direction, and preserving the sea view is a key consideration, but inaction is not an option; the chairman of the Beach Operators Association emphasized that The Hague must remain a coastal city, not a city in the ocean.
The global demonstration value of this vision cannot be overlooked. Dutch coastal expertise is itself an export, with "building with nature" technology already applied to overseas projects such as Norfolk in the UK, and attracting research interest from the United States, Vietnam, South Africa, and Indonesia. For the marine engineering and coastal adaptation industries, The Hague's plan indicates that coastal investments are increasingly being made on a century-long cycle rather than a budget cycle.
