Last year, an average of 7.16 hectares of open landscape per day disappeared under concrete in Flanders. Flemish parliament member Mieke Schauvliege (Groen) has reported this. She warns that this trend is promoting the desiccation of the soil and calls on Environment Minister Zuhal Demir (N-VA) to stop the concreting of Flanders.
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The loss of open space to business parks, roads, etc. in 2015 amounted to 4.46 hectares per day. According to figures from Schauvliege, the counter stood at 7.16 hectares per day in 2019, an increase of almost 30 percent compared to a year earlier. “The open space must believe it. It is a real concrete acceleration instead of a concrete stop, ”says the opposition member.
She emphasizes that concrete acceleration, together with climate change, can have serious consequences for the drought problem. “Because there is more and more concrete in Flanders, the rainwater cannot seep into the soil. The result is clear: the groundwater will no longer be replenished and the groundwater level will drop. ”
Schauvliege complains that Minister Demir has not yet worked on a policy framework to realize the construction shift. “The only initiative that was already on the table is a bad decree, the instrument decree, which experts say does the opposite of what we want to promote, rather than reduce, building in the open space,” it says.
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