The Impact of Incorrect Water Management on Drought in the Dutch Agricultural Area Near Halle in the Achterhoek

This year’s spring was marked by lots and lots of rain. Despite the wet spring, concerns about drought in the Netherlands have not disappeared. Climate change is often cited as a cause of desiccation, but according to experts, it is due to something completely different: incorrect water management.

After the wet spring months of March and April, it has been much drier for a few weeks now. And it looks like it will stay that way for a while. Drought in our country is an increasing problem, but this is not due to a lack of rain.

According to the KNMI, the amount of precipitation has increased by 9 percent in the past sixty years. It has not rained more often in recent years, but it has rained harder. “The climate has become wetter, but it is nevertheless getting drier,” says ecohydrologist Flip Witte News hour. He has been researching drought in nature for fifty years.

According to Witte, nature is drying up because water management in the Netherlands has changed structurally. “We started extracting more groundwater for drinking water supply and industry. We lowered water levels, dug ditches and dug drains.”

According to Witte, water management in our country is mainly geared to agriculture. “We lower the level in the spring. Farmers are allowed to spread manure from February 15. It is better for the carrying capacity of the soil when the level is low. So they drain all that water and then, when we get a drier period, we have to turn on the sprinklers.”

Fellow hydrologist Gé van den Eertwegh warns that we should not count on a period with a lot of rain. “Now the shallow water table is up to standard, but the deeper system is not.”

Van den Eertwegh says that in the short term this is indeed due to our own actions. “Climate change also plays a role, but it mainly depends on the choices we make ourselves when it comes to drainage.” The hydrologist compares water policy in the Netherlands to a bathtub: “Man pulls the plug.”

Water boards are faced with the challenge of better retaining rainwater when it falls, so that there is a buffer for drier periods. But just like Witte, Van den Eertwegh says that those water boards still provide too much drainage and drainage. “Many farmers have an administrative role at the water boards. It is in the interest of agriculture if farmers can work with drier soil after a wet period in the spring.”

Last year, the cabinet announced that it wanted to raise the groundwater level to reduce CO2 emissions and prevent subsidence of houses. Instead of adjusting the groundwater level to the needs of agriculture and industry, the state of the water and soil should become guiding.

“A well-intentioned intention, but very soft,” says Van den Eertwegh. “It’s not a law, so it offers no guarantees.”

Witte is also skeptical. He refers to a motion adopted by the House of Representatives in 1990 promising to reduce the desiccation of nature areas by 25 percent by the year 2000. “And in 2010 it would be 40 percent. That policy just hasn’t been implemented.”

Van den Eertweegh adds that provinces also play a role in adjusting water management. “They supervise the water boards, so they also bear that responsibility.”

See here what water boards do with the heavy rain of the wet spring in the Netherlands: