A common trend with the Netherlands flooding proves to be: because something had been improved, it has effected the river in some way. Improved flood protection, such as higher embankments, means water flows downstream much quicker than it used to. Navigation of shipping had also been improved by straightening the river (shortened the river length by 50km), which also makes the water flow downstream even quicker. All these little improvements the Netherlands tried to introduce managed to increase the chances of the Rhine bursting its banks due to all the extra speed and pressure these improvements were causing. Adversely, some causes of the Bangladesh flood were down to the lack of improvement in the country. The country was in heavy debt and couldn't afford to improve. Their flood prevention systems didn't work effectively because money for protections schemes was taken away by corruption.
Corruption in Bangladesh has been a continuos problem, completely adverse to the Netherlands corruption index. Both corruption index and income per person are in correlation between each other. The lower the country's average income per person, naturally, the higher the corruption, relating into how each floods were dealt with differently (Master, 2009). Because Bangladesh is a LEDC, people struggle to survive, so often fall into crime and corruption, on the other hand however, the Netherlands (being an MEDC) has a much higher income per person therefore would feel less inclined to resort to similar actions. A problem Bangladesh had during the 1998 flood was how corruption was preventing the government being able to afford to put the correct flooding implications in place. Bangladesh is at an unstable point with poverty, corruption and disease. The Netherlands however, is at stable stage in all social, economic, environmental and political factors.
The Netherlands is significantly wealthier than Bangladesh. Bangladesh has a current GDP$111.9 billion, whereas the Netherlands has a current GDP of $836.1 billion (WorldBank, 2011). Thats over 8 times more than Bangladesh. When Bangladesh was hit with the flood, they had to rely on international aid and charity help to get through and clean up the disaster, whereas the Netherlands is economically stable enough to support and pay for everything themselves. This overall significantly reduced the amount of reform time the Netherlands needed to get back to normal, where Bangladesh took much longer for long term fixes.
During the flood, the Netherlands had a stable Prime Minster, Wim Kok. Wim Kok was a labor party leader at the head of a three party coalition and (BBC, 2013). Bangladesh on the the other had, had a party in charge known as the 'Awami League', a democratic socialism (BBC, 2012). It was described that the government dealt with the flood 'satisfactorily', but the flood in the Netherlands managed to avoid a full-scale disaster due to the authorities being well prepared having effective emergency procedures in place. This brought down the scale for the Netherlands with the total death toll coming to four, where the Bangladesh flood came to a much larger 1040.
During the flood, the Netherlands had a stable Prime Minster, Wim Kok. Wim Kok was a labor party leader at the head of a three party coalition and (BBC, 2013). Bangladesh on the the other had, had a party in charge known as the 'Awami League', a democratic socialism (BBC, 2012). It was described that the government dealt with the flood 'satisfactorily', but the flood in the Netherlands managed to avoid a full-scale disaster due to the authorities being well prepared having effective emergency procedures in place. This brought down the scale for the Netherlands with the total death toll coming to four, where the Bangladesh flood came to a much larger 1040.