It is now pumping or drying in the Netherlands: water boards take emergency measures

 

NIEUWSDROOGTE

It is now pumping or drying in the Netherlands: water boards take emergency measures

 

Water boards have had to take emergency measures to deal with the ongoing drought over the past two weeks. The water boards are deploying emergency pumps and have already introduced a spraying ban for many regions.

 

Joris Tieleman14 augustus 2020, 5:00

https://www.volkskrant.nl/nieuws-achtergrond/het-is-nu-pompen-of-verdrogen-in-nederland-waterschappen-nemen-noodmaatregelen~b54755d8/

 

This is shown by a survey of 21 water boards by de Volkskrant. A total of eleven water boards now have a spraying ban for their entire area or parts of it. In six water boards, emergency pumps have been used to pump water from, for example, lake IJssel or from rivers to thirsty fields.

 

Divider

In the increasingly drier summer climate, the dividing line between the high and low Netherlands is sharp. Especially in the South and East of the Netherlands, water boards are increasingly forced to navigate between nature, agriculture and sometimes shipping. Even a severe thunderstorm and rain, in which the water often flows quickly, cannot dispel the drought.

 

The emergency measures were inevitable but there is a structural problem behind it, says Klaasjan  Raat, hydrologist at water research institute KWR. 'We have dewatered the Netherlands for decades. It is important for the food supply, but we may have gone through with it. Now we have to go back a few steps, not easy choices. It's also a political issue.'   

 

The water boards are working hard to adapt to the new climate. In 2018, the extremely dry summer was overwhelmed, this year almost everywhere in the spring the water levels were set as high as possible to create a water buffer for the summer. A windfall in this dry summer is the slightly higher standing of the Meuse and Rhine.

 

Beregeningsinstallaties

Nevertheless, the water boards in large parts of the country must make every case in order to continue to provide agriculture with sufficient water. 'Over the past few dry years, farmers within our area have invested heavily in irrigation plants. This results in a considerable additional water demand,' says a spokesman for water board Hunze and Aa, Drenthe. 'We have currently deployed 100,000 euros worth of emergency pumps to meet that demand.'

 

This is not possible in southern provinces. 'We would like to, but we don't have any water to pump around,' says a spokesman for the De Dommel water board in southern Brabant.

 

Water boards are also working on structural solutions. For example, the water boards in the central Netherlands are building their canal system from the Rhine, to prevent invading seawater from salinating the local waterways.

 

Structural solutions

However, such solutions require much more time, says Mirjam Hack of Wageningen Environmental  Research. 'Water boards also know that we need to look for structural solutions. But the water system is embedded in our entire country design, you don't just change that.' In the short term, the weirs are raised as high as possible almost everywhere and additional measures have been taken to maintain the scarce water for as long as possible. Farmers and wildlife organizations place metal ripeners in the ditches and streams on their land, blocking their drains with rubber skippy balls.

 

Water boards in higher regions often prohibit the extraction of surface water for watering crops. On the flanks of the Utrecht Ridge, such a ban has been imposed for the first time in 25 years. For the time being, additional measures concerning the abstraction of groundwater are hardly in force, although the call is therefore louder and louder.

 

High sandy soils

The hardest hit are the high sandy soils. On the Veluwe, 15% of all streams have now dried up, which can cause permanent damage to those ecosystems. The fish have been moved to streams where there is still water. Water board Aa and Maas, located in eastern Brabant, is also working with local fishing clubs to rescue the fish from drying streams and is also pumping up extra groundwater to feed the most vulnerable streams.

 

The Achterhoek is also bone dry. 'The biggest problem is that we do not have our own water supply in our area,' says Peter Schrijver, board member of the Rhine and IJssel Water Board. 'In order to survive this kind of summer, we will leave the water as high as possible in winter. This increases the risk of flooding, but we have to.'