2023-08-13 13:09:15
With a few heavy showers last Saturday, a period of heavy rain in the Netherlands seems to be over for the time being. This year, the weeks with extreme drought or a lot of precipitation alternate strongly. Nature and agriculture suffer from this. “A lot still needs to be done to deal with the consequences of the extremes,” says Jane Alblas of the Union of water boards.
“The weather is erratic,” notes Niko Wanders, hydrologist at Utrecht University. “First a very dry period and then a wet month, that is exceptional.”
This is also apparent from the KNMI figures: in July there was 110 millimeters of rain and normally that is 78 millimetres. In June it was very dry with 24 millimeters where 66 is the average. In mid-June, the KNMI already reported that no rain had fallen for fifteen days (between May 24 and June 8), which has only happened five times in the last hundred years.
Tackle shredding
It has been clear for a few years now that the Netherlands must retain water in, among other things, the soil and in reservoirs during wet periods in order to use it during dry periods. “Awareness has been growing since the dry summers from 2018,” says Wanders, but what is really needed are structural measures. In principle, this means no agriculture, but nature in areas where there is little water or a lot of water. Agriculture is more suitable in areas where the presence of water can be kept more in balance, the hydrologist argues.
Wanders advocates a better distinction between the functions of agriculture and nature and limitation of fragmentation. “If the areas with a single function become larger in scale, it will be easier to regulate the water. The interests of agriculture, nature and the drinking water supply are now clashing in many places. Farmers generally want a low water level to make it easier to use their machines on the land, nature usually needs wet conditions and water companies want others to extract as little water as possible to safeguard the drinking water supply.”
The hydrologist also believes that building is still too often on low-lying sites. The pumping stations pump out too much water to keep the homes in those neighborhoods dry, he argues.
BBB no trend break
“It is always a matter of finding the right balance between retaining as much water as possible, for drier periods, and pumping water away to avoid wet cellars,” says Alblas of the Union of Water Boards. “Water boards are already opting to retain more water in the ditches for dry periods. In some areas, they deliberately take a slightly higher risk of flooding if it starts to rain again.”
The BBB was the big winner in the water board elections last March. So far, this has had no consequences for water boards’ drought measures, says Alblas. “I don’t see a break in the trend at the moment. Farmers also have an interest in protecting water and want to maintain supplies. This can be done by a higher water level in the ditches, but also by improving the structure of the soil, which can function as a sponge and thus retain the water in the capillaries. This means stimulating soil life and alternating crops to keep the soil vital and loose. You can see that solving drought problems requires regional customization. There is no blueprint that works everywhere.”
Limit peaks
A lot has happened in recent years, Wanders believes. “Traditionally, the Dutch water managers turn on the pumps and open the sluices when it rains a lot. They don’t anymore. Almost everyone knows: hold on to as much as possible, that water. In many places the course of streams has already been shifted so that they store more water, there are more water reservoirs and sometimes the water in the ditches is kept at a higher level. In the area where I live, the Utrechtse Heuvelrug, nature organisations, farmers and the government also make agreements about this.”
But structural adjustments, such as the designation of larger agricultural and nature areas, have not yet been made, Wanders notes. Provinces should change that, he believes. “It will then be easier to limit the consequences of the enormous peaks and troughs of precipitation and drought. Agriculture and nature are already noticing how quickly drought is increasing.”
Read also:
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Water boards Rijnland and Stichtse Rijnlanden are taking measures against salinization of the water in the western Netherlands. Because it doesn’t rain enough and the Rhine doesn’t supply enough.
There is still water in the ditches, but it should rain soon
The rain shortage is increasing and with it the worries about drought. But it could have been worse: many measures to retain water turn out well.
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