"The leaders of Louisiana will learn a great deal about what can be applied at home to protect ourselves for ever again against the waters that ravaged the great city of New Orleans," Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu said at the start of the three-day visit.

Blanco said Louisiana may also have lessons for The Netherlands.

Hurricane Katrina, which pummelled the southern United States in August, causing widespread flooding in New Orleans and killing more than 1,300 people, was the single largest disaster in US history.

"There is the question of how do you organize the evacuation of a major urban area. What do you do if people cannot return to the area? That is part of the challenge," she said.

Dutch Deputy Transport Minister Melanie Schultz van Haegen noted the similarities between The Netherlands and Louisiana.

According to official calculations, some two-thirds of The Netherlands would be submerged without its 3,500 kilometres (2,190 miles) of dams, dikes and dunes.

A devastating flood in 1953 that killed more than 2,000 people in the southwest of The Netherlands prompted the government to launch an unprecedented plan for coastal protection called the Delta project.

However Schultz said that a carbon copy of the Dutch Delta project, which cost 15.5 billion euros (18.7 billion dollars) at current prices, would probably not work for Louisiana.

"Every country needs its own system depending on the soil, sea currents et cetera. You cannot copy the Dutch system one-on-one for Louisiana," she said.

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