SustainaLab Talks: Flood Risks & Housing in Amsterdam

As Amsterdam expands its housing stock under growing climate uncertainty, understanding and managing flood risk becomes increasingly urgent. This SustainaLab Talks explores how flood risks can be forecast, and modelled using a range of data‑driven methods – from improved short‑term weather and flood forecasts to long‑term climate risk analyses-, how these risks are assessed and priced by insurers and banks, and how they are incorporated into spatial planning and public investment decisions.

Bringing together perspectives from enterprise risk management, interpretable machine learning, climate risk, adaptation finance, and governance, we discuss how better forecasting and modelling – including AI‑based approaches – can support more robust flood risk and insurance assessments. 

Join us for talks and a panel discussion on:

• Climate related financial risks
• Interpetrable machine learning in relation to natural hazards
• Climate related risk modelling
• Quantum inspired algorithms and their impact on climate models

• Bas Kolen, Professor Enterprise Risk Management at the Amsterdam School of Economics (University of Amsterdam) and Director R&D at HKV will talk about climate‑related financial risks and the implications of climate change for insurance businesses.  With a long‑standing focus on flood risk and evacuation decisions under severe flood warnings, he will discuss when and how societies should prepare for and respond to extreme flood scenarios, and what this means for housing, insurance and public policy in Amsterdam and the wider delta. 
• Jörgen Sandig, CEO at Fermioniq, will show how quantum‑inspired algorithms can dramatically improve the accuracy of flood and water system modelling in the Netherlands.
• Gerhard Mulder, CEO & Co-Founder of Climate Risk Services will show how climate‑smart and nature‑positive organisations can better understand, assess and manage climate and nature‑related risks and opportunities. Drawing on CRS’s work in strategy, governance, risk management and reporting for financial institutions and real estate investors, he will explore how flood and climate risk assessments translate into insurance choices, investment decisions and climate‑resilient housing in Amsterdam and beyond. 
• Saskia van Vuren, Advisor Knowledge and Strategy at the Delta Commissioner’s staff of the National Delta Programme will discuss how key instruments of Dutch delta management guide choices on water safety, housing and long‑term resilience in the Netherlands. She will show how interactions and societal impacts across the full water system – coasts, rivers, transition zones and regional waters – are brought into view and translated into deltamanagement. Her talk will explore how this strategic knowledge supports major transitions that also affect the Amsterdam region. 

Moderation by Paul de Kuyper, CEO at BIT.