December 2006 the Dutch Senate approved the Spatial Planning Key Decision ‘Room for the River’. This decision concluded a 5 year decision-making process on a 2 billion scheme for sustained flood-protection and improved spatial quality along the branches of the river Rhine by 2015. The presentation will focus primarily on planning concepts, principles and tools for decision-making. At the beginning for many the task seemed to be like ‘squaring the circle’ by attempting to achieve goals of different nature, produce a plan with an acceptable cost-benefit ratio and meet many local and regional interests. Looking back many consider ‘Room for the Rivers’ a successful planning-operation, but still many obstacles lie ahead in the execution-phase that started in 2007. Some examples of work in progress will be highlighted.