In a place like the Netherlands, used to protecting itself from the sea, talking about a great drought meant going back to 1976, a date that went down in annals as the driest year of the 20th century.
With the change in climate, however, 2022 already occupies that position so far in the 21st century, according to the Royal Meteorological Institute (KNMI, in its Dutch acronym).
The lack of rain and the effects of evaporation were evident during the summer, with ponds and rivers consumed, yellowing meadows and dead trees and shrubs.
But the biggest problem lies in groundwater, which is not replenished by a few downpours.
The situation becomes structural due to the lack of natural water recharge, and this hinders agricultural work, damages nature and affects the economy.
Last August,
The Government officially declared that there was a "shortage of water" and asked citizens to use it moderately.
The KNMI points out that rainfall has not recovered its usual rate, and its experts estimate that in the coming decades this trend will be more pronounced.
Water management, a task carried out with as much precision as constancy by the Dutch, now involves storing it for later use.
And this is a challenge of another kind.
With 60% of the territory susceptible to flooding, and 26% of the country below sea level, the dikes, dunes and gates add up to 3,500 kilometers of main line of defense against the onslaught of water.
Its maintenance and renovation is a constant task, and its management does not usually generate political differences.
On the contrary, it conforms the classic image of the country in its fight against water: it must be repelled, drained, pumped, shrunk, if necessary, to maintain a landscape created almost by hand.
At the same time, a climate change is advancing that alternates droughts with great rains that overflow the rivers, and the higher temperatures cause the rise of the sea level.
This summer of 2022 has been the hottest in Europe to date, according to the record carried out by the Copernicus Climate Change Service,
on behalf of the European Commission.
“So we can no longer continue to drain all the water and let it go freely into the sea, to keep the land dry.
You have to use it more appropriately,” says Maarten Kuiper, a hydrologist at the engineering company Dareius, over the phone.
The periods of drought mark even more if possible the two geographical parts of the Netherlands.
These are the lands of high areas —located to the east and south— and low areas —located to the north and west.
They do not correspond to a logic of up (north) and down (south) with the map in hand, "and in the lower parts, the clay and peat soils sink faster with the change of climate because the groundwater dries up Kuiper explains.
Peat is the carbon formed by the decomposition of vegetables, and human action and weather cause the decline of the soil.
In their natural state, peat bogs also protect the country's store of fresh water, necessary for crops and water for human consumption.
“But the peat dries up more and more in summer and the land sinks, and the difference between ground level and sea level is greater.
As a result, there is greater salinization, because seawater enters the polders in the low-lying areas underground, and we need a lot of fresh water to clean it.
And in summer we don't have so much, ”he says.
A polder is dry and habitable land where there are also crops, "and in the lower areas there is more danger of flooding, not only due to the subsidence of the soil and the rise in sea level, but also due to changes in river flow."
"We have to think about the future of the dikes and where we will build more houses," continues the expert.
It will not be easy, because the west of the country is in the lower zone —with cities like Rotterdam and Amsterdam— and it is a densely populated area with great economic activity.
“I wonder if we will build more and more in the highland regions of the country, where fewer people now live.
For that,
In the center of the Netherlands there is an artificial lake, the IJsselmeer.
It was created in 1932 by closing the inland sea (Zuiderzee) with a dike called Afsluitdijk, and serves as a freshwater reserve for human consumption and agriculture.
“The water flows into the lower areas because the lake is a little higher than the polders, but the lake is connected to the rivers that feed it, and that discharge is decreasing during the summer.
In the future, we will have to decide how to save the water, as well as preserve its quality”, says Kuiper.
One of the possibilities considered by the Government is to raise the level of the IJsselmeer and make it more dynamic.
The flow is controlled by the authorities that manage the waters.
Although it sounds simple, this would imply reinforcing the current dikes.
Another option would be, according to him, to optimize the use of other waters,
like the residuals.
“The municipality and the relevant authorities collect, purify and throw them into the sea.
With a few additions, they could be used for agriculture and industry.
And, of course, we should be able to use water better to live with less”.
Matthijs Kok, an expert in flood risk assessment and management at Delft University of Technology, believes that the possibility of less water in the future needs to be addressed without delay.
Despite the large floods registered in the south of the Netherlands in 2021, "the water that is available at the water table in the high areas of the Netherlands - about 40% of the country - during the summer, will have to be better stored inside the ground to serve during droughts”, he asserts.
He also advocates partly modifying the use of the land, "perhaps by 5%, and starting to have more nature and less agricultural plots, to better maintain the groundwater table."
There are experiments by the Institute for Water Research (KWR, in its Dutch acronym) with wetter soils where it can grow, for example,
the belfry
It is a herbaceous plant that can be used as a building material.
The worst drought from the point of view of evaporation was that of 1976, but now the dry periods are more frequent.
“In the past, it could happen once in 20 years.
Now, maybe we'll see one in every decade, on average, and you have to strike a balance between being safe and having water.
Sometimes there is not enough for agriculture, and farmers are already under pressure to reduce the herd because large farms are not sustainable.
Land use cannot be separated from climate change, and the great needs of the field may change in the future”, he points out.
but now the dry periods are more frequent.
“In the past, it could happen once in 20 years.
Now, maybe we'll see one in every decade, on average, and you have to strike a balance between being safe and having water.
Sometimes there is not enough for agriculture, and farmers are already under pressure to reduce the herd because large farms are not sustainable.
Land use cannot be separated from climate change, and the great needs of the field may change in the future,” she notes.
but now the dry periods are more frequent.
“In the past, it could happen once in 20 years.
Now, maybe we'll see one in every decade, on average, and you have to strike a balance between being safe and having water.
Sometimes there is not enough for agriculture, and farmers are already under pressure to reduce the herd because large farms are not sustainable.
Land use cannot be separated from climate change, and the great needs of the field may change in the future,” she notes.
and farmers are already under pressure to reduce the herd because large farms are not sustainable.
Land use cannot be separated from climate change, and the great needs of the field may change in the future”, he points out.
and farmers are already under pressure to reduce the herd because large farms are not sustainable.
Land use cannot be separated from climate change, and the great needs of the field may change in the future”, he points out.
Image taken with a drone last August in Beusichem, the Netherlands. Remko de Waal (EFE)
To date, the periods of drought have not greatly modified the volume of water that the Netherlands releases into the sea.
And that is something that Bas Jonkman, Professor of Hydraulic Engineering at the same University of Delft wants to underline.
“Even during the past dry summer, the discharge into the Rhine Sea was 700,000 liters per second.
That has to be changed."
It seems difficult to him in the short term, but he indicates that from 2050, "we will need a solution that protects from the rise of the sea level and allows the storage of fresh water, and contains the entry of salt water."
One of the ideas evaluated is the construction of a dam near Rotterdam, whose port is the largest in Europe.
Its facilities have an open connection to the North Sea via a navigation channel that is the artificial mouth of the Rhine River.
Jonkman says that given the mix of climate change, drought and rising sea levels, "one can be pessimistic, and say that in the coming years it will be better not to build houses in the west of the country, which is prone to flooding."
“I prefer a more optimistic approach.
One meter of sea level rise is expected this century, and I believe it can be contained.
The pumping stations can be upgraded and the height of the dams can be raised by two or three meters without the need to replace them”, he says.
To support his thesis, he recalls that, since the 1950s, storm defenses have already been raised by 5 meters in Zeeland, in the southwest of the country.
"One more meter is feasible, without forgetting that more space has already been given to the rivers so that they can flood, in a controlled manner, designated areas, avoiding overflows."
In 1953,
Disastrous flooding caused by a northwesterly storm combined with a spring tide, caused 1,836 deaths in the Netherlands.
Tens of thousands of animals also drowned, and it is the biggest Dutch natural disaster of the 20th century.
The possible Rotterdam dam would change the natural balance around the city, particularly in the Biesbosh natural park, an important wetland, "and it remains to be seen if it is acceptable, although it is clear that we need a plan if the sea rises and the flow of the rivers”, recalls Matthijs Kok. He wonders if there will be enough time to implement the necessary measures, and describes the current situation as “challenging, although we have known for 15 years that this problem is coming”.
"The political tendency is to adapt, but this may imply that large measures that require time to be applied are postponed," he stresses.
Bas Jonkman agrees on the need for people to change their attitude, "because we tend to think that we already pay taxes and the Government takes care of everything."
Both zones, the high and the low, have problems,
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