Important distinction for the quote at 1:15, these generally aren't irrigation canals because the land is plenty wet with groundwater. They are drainage canals used to pump away rising ground water.
And that is part of the problem: the netherlands has so much agriculture, and they all need the water to be fairly low. And with storms, the water thus needs to be removed quickly. Nowadays, these agriculture areas needs to be used as storage.
Thing is due to drowth and pumping up that ground water we still don't have any water. Just for context sake. The smaller canals between meadows are in trouble bc groundwater irrigation. That also threaten's drinking water and so on. Full circle. There are solutions when you recycle that water with added filter; but none of that is happening. Agriculture pays a high price for that while it is system that should pay that price for neglacting groundwater preservation. If you use river water for example in wet season with filter it can lower pressure on already low groundwater. System isnt built on crisis but on growth. It needs a mindset shift from all of us. Nomatter wich side you are on politics wise. Noone is served when we point fingers at eachother. If want Polarisation to end the only answer is to roll up those sleeves and just do it. Ain't no easy answer here that can please all. But can we make at least make an effort to make it work for all.
If I understand anything about the Netherlands, their engineers will work this one out and their companies will develop the solution into a profitable export. Without invading their neighbours, acrimony or fuss, too. Hup, Holland, Hup.
Their is a chance things will not go well this time around: the government has outsourced everything and they have no experts anymore. They have so little expertise they don't really know which company is best to hire to advise them. That's what I hear from people who have worked in the government.
@@steveholmes5939 the netherlands, despite its rich appearance, is dealing with quite a lot of issues on every level (i honestly wouldn't be surprised if we see civil wars pop up with the next few years )
The positive point is that NL has very strong water-management organizations and companies. At the moment, a lot is invested to adapt procedures and infrastructure to adapt to the changing climate. For instance, in my neighborhood, all streets got new sewer systems. Rainwater is not collected in huge pits, not flooded away via the sewers. Also, the Ijselmeer (the large central "lake") gets a dynamic height. Cities actively remove tiles and add trees. So: sincere attempts to battle the consequences of climate change.
@ inderdaad. Men schijnt ervan overtuigd te zijn dat het klimaat stil moet staan. Mijn vriend, een expert op dit gebied, lacht zich een kriek om de onzin!
@ complots are existing since the creation of the world, but do not believe them. Everybody is sincere, honest and transparant, with the best intentions.... some people are still laying in coma and will never wake up.
And tings like the Sandmotor (zandmotor) just south of Scheveningen, to let the water and currents strenghten our coast with higher dunes and wider beaches.
Mwah, there’s enough water, just at the wrong time at the wrong place. This is an engineering problems at which the Dutch are exceptionally good. Have full confidence it can and will be solved.
Yeah dutch are really good at doing stuff, if italy was in the same position we would already be dry (italy already is getting dry and it's like mountains everywhere)
@@no_name4796 Yeah we are good at engineering. Sadly it's not the lack of engineering/solutions that is holding us back, but other problems. Space is in my opinion a bigger problem than many foreign and native people (want to) admit. For example Italy has a surface of about 300.000 km2 while having a population of about 60 mil, the Netherlands has a surface of about 42.000 km2 with a population of about 18 mil. A quick calculation will show that Italy has roughly 200 people per km2 while the Netherlands has about 428 per km2. Now I am aware that Italy has mountains which aren't really suitable for living, so in reality Italy is more populated than reflected here, but I think you get the point. All these people have to have housing, services, infrastructure and work. It's become that much of a problem that getting a project approved is very difficult if it involves building anything. Which is also part of the reason why we currently have a housing problem, and why certain engineering projects might not get (or take forever to be) realized. Edit: To make things worse, the projects that do get accepted often have a lot of money backing them, or easier said they come from big organizations. And you can imagine that their primary concern isn't to solve problems, but to make money.
@@willemvanoranje5724 How can you call yourself Willem van Oranje and then talk about our president. I assume you mean our government or our prime minister. By the way our king should also have some understanding since apparently he has a Master's degree in watermanagement.
@@richardbloemenkamp8532 Can the King influence said matters? It's rather ceremonial these days... Back in my days we got shot while doing our duty, to serve the people. These days it's just getting a paycheck for being born. The president is to blame for the terrible state NL is in, seeing he's already in rule for 12 years or more.... could have done something about it by now dont you think?
Drought leads to innovations. Drought also causes salinization: seawater that ends up in our soil and waters. To prevent salinization, there is now a 'bubble screen' at the bottom of the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal. A bubble screen is a large tube with holes through which air is blown. These bubbles stop the salt water from the sea.
@@eljanrimsa5843 The bubble screen is a tube on the bottom of the North Sea Canal. They pump air through it, which enters the water and rises to the top. Salt water is heavier than fresh water and therefore flows over the bottom. The air bubbles from the bubble screen raise the salt water
Really nice video, wouldn't have imaged the Dutch are so low on fresh water. Impressive how you managed to condense all of that into just 7 minutes! Appreciate the fairphone sponsorship as well, I use their phone myself and was pleasantly surprised to see them sponsoring.
We in The Netherlands live on the largest gasbubble of Europe and have a lack of gas... We have an enormous freshwater reservoir in the form of a lake called IJsselmeer. Our king seems to have a PhD in watermanagement. And you believe what they are telling us is true?? The motto of the WEF is: You will own nothing and be happy! So the energy prices here go sky high!
@ Just think about it, Rene. Think for instance about the Delta Plan after the 1953 flooding. We even kept the Westerschelde in open connection with the sea to serve the local fishing economies and to save the unique wildlife. We didn't argue too much about costs back then. It was a major threat and we simply took care of the problem. That's how I know that if and when the future of historical Amsterdam gets at steak, national pride will kick in and we will solve the problem. And solve it without any home or business owner having to pay for it. No matter the ultimate overall cost. We can afford ourselves to organize a project in order to save our capitol. Especially when it's done in one giant, well organized event, phased out over multiple years. That's how things get done in our little, well organized country. That's how it works. And you know that just as well as I. Good greetz from Utrecht.
One of the problems is that farmers like the keep the water table low in wet periods, because that's better for the crops, but that also means there isn't much of a buffer for dry periods.
The drought is caused by purposefully guiding water that accumulates during the autumn and winter into the sea to make farmland dry enough to be worked early in the year. The shortage in the summer is for most parts of the Netherlands easy to solve by letting less water flow into the sea and keeping the groundwater levels up.
An innovation to the dykes would be to use them to store water between two walls behind my the sea wall, and built higher than the sea level so that fresh water would flow into the ground aquifer and protect from salt water intrusion. With these built to store sufficient water for the whole year drought with no longer be an issue. Probably building with steel in an enclosed arch hemi-tube shape designed to be in membrane stress when full would be most economical. Cover them with solar to get extra energy, and some kind of energy storage would serve the electricity grid and be used to power pumps during storms. Lots of synergies would improve economics. I have never heard of anything like this. Alternatively letting the rivers flow into big bags to store fresh water from storms would be inexpensive. Netherlands is advanced in terraforming, so my stagnate?
Your clickbait title got me to the video, but it's very misleading. The Dutch have more water per m2 space than most countries in the world. Just also happen to have more people and loads of industries that have built up to take advantage of it. It's a question of supply (over)demand. That 'renewable water index'' is just farcical. NL is next to Bangladesh, probably the wettest country in the world and as a result supporting a huge population. This is a manmade problem, not a supply problem.
To my knowledge the IJssel Lake is a fresh water lake, becoming that after the former South Sea was closed by the Closure Dyke. The IJssel river still keeps flowing into it, and only when there is too much water in it, they will pump it out. But they never pump (salty) sea water into the IJssel Lake. When looking on Wikipedia about the IJssel Lake I quote from Wikipedia : "Due to considerable amounts of water from the Rhine flowing through its distributary IJssel into the IJsselmeer, the closed off bay functions as a large freshwater reservoir, serving as a source for agriculture and drinking water. Outlet sluices in the Afsluitdijk regulate the water level of the IJsselmeer.". In theory we could even make a big polder inside the North Sea where the Rhine exists, and make a side 'buffer' area to catch that water before it flows into the North Sea. We are technologically advanced enough to make that polder, and also making sure no saltwater can go through the dikes of this theoretical polder, that would then act as a water buffer.
Thank you for sharing the information. I actually have a question. Can you please tell me the water of Ijsselmeer and Markermeer, where are they came from? Are they all from Rhine or also rain? Thank you very much in advance
How about not importing so many immigrants into the Netherlands which as you simply said doesnt have much space and a tremendous population density of about 430 p/km2 which would solve the cultural and criminal problem, the housing problem AND the resource and lack of space problem (thus helps with water) ?
@@ClannCholmain Our population has rarely gone in decline, ever since we started with statics anyways. Just lacking certain people for certain work, which has deeper problems
@@ClannCholmain well they dont. and if i have to choose between a bunch of African and Moroccan immigrants who care about weed and drugs plus some of them being illegal vs Dutch people having more children who are honest and hard working ofcoaaaaaarse I'll choose the immigrants!! otherwise i would be racist dude.. That being said I dont see why an European ethnic group like the Dutch would suddenly make a huge population growth they never did in history (the 60s baby boomer pop growth was nothing like the population growth now in Africa, Pakistan, India and etc)
Well i am dutch man i live in the Netherlands and what you are telling to the people here on UA-cam is nonsens it is now winter and it rains every day here and it is cold as hell here, And we have enough water what to you think about the Big lake in the middle of my country that lake yeah that is where our drinking water comes from what comes out of the tap, We have no what problems in my country.
About the alpine glaciers: because they are melting rapidly and release a lot of water during hot summers they actually partly compensate for the droughts. This will be the case for the next 20 years or so until they become too small to have a significant impact. Also this is a video you can make for any Central-European country. At least we have a lot of knowledge here and over the last decade a lot of money has been invested to maintain as much water as possible during dry periods and at the same time provide retention areas for the water when there is too much. I am pretty sure there are a lot of countries much more heavily impacted by the changing hydrological cyclus than the Dutch
Solar cycle 26 predictions indicate we will see a reduction in global temperatures by approx 1 degree celsius wiping out most of the temperature gains (1.25 - 1.5 degrees celsius gains) from the last 150 years and taking the Earth back to temperatures more in line with those experienced in the little ice age. The ocean conveyor belt bringing warmer waters to the Europe and the North Atlantic is also in danger of breaking down. This will have the effect of reducing temps further in areas that currently benefit from the warming. During the little ice age the Thames river would regularly freeze over allowing ice skating; better polish up your blades.
Your forgetting 1 BIG point. The farming industry wants dry land to work on and they have a BIG political influence on our water politics. So we keep are water levels pretty low with no buffers. This also causes many places to sink when there is drought. This causes to droughts to be harder then needed and the effect on homes are huge. 1.5 millions homes are damaged because of this and need big structural repairs. And when the ground sinks, ur not getting it back elevated to normal level. So we keep on sinking over time. Which is a big problem over time.
Roberto What is presented as a problem, is no problem at all. Rijkswaterstaat knows the solutions. She does what she has to do. Why? Because our water management is not privatized.
The Dutch probably need to build desalinated water reservoirs all along the coast, so that any water that seeps through become less salty. That also allows the desalinated water to first fill up the water table inland. The best is to wean all human-related activities off natural water onto desalinated water, and return all the natural water back. Australia is also facing the same drought conditions with very intense rainfall, but all the flood water flows back to the sea, and desalination plants are only activated when we need to top up water use due to depleting natural water sources.
This is just one of the problems the Netherlands will face in the coming decades. All of these problems go hand in hand. Some of the others: *Farmland depletion,* caused by intensive farming with artificial fertilizers. If this isn't solved in 20 years, large parts of Dutch farmland will become inarable. *Reduction in biodiversity / Impoverishment of the ground,* caused by nitrogen oxides and ammonia from fertilizers and livestock excrement leaking into nature areas. This has a very significant negative effect on the local ecosystems. Mismanagement on this front has lead to the farmer protests you might have read about in the past year, as well as delays and extra costs for all ongoing construction projects, hitting every industry. *Rising sea levels* due to climate change will require improvement of the flood defences earlier than expected as well as forcing the sea surge barriers to close more often, causing delays to international shipping. *Earthquakes* in Groningen, caused by drilling for natural gas have caused the government to slowly stop the extraction of gas, worsening supply problems for the EU as a whole. If current geopolitical events keep going on, the government might have no other choice but to start drilling again. There's also the *housing crisis* and *fractured political landscape,* but I don't want to turn this comment into a novel.
"in 20 years, large parts of Dutch farmland will become inarable." do you mean becouse of toxins? Sustainable fertilizers exist but they're not economically appealing and give lower crop yields. So soil fertility is not an issue.
@@Zero-oh8vm Yes, sustainable fertilizers exist (or at the very least, papers have been written to prove they would work), but most Dutch agriculture businesses operate on razor-thin margins, needing to maximize crop yields to stay afloat. The current system is unsustainable.
@@qwertyuiopzxcfgh totally agree with you, one positive remark is that there is a factory who processes cow manure (wich they can't inject into the soil anymore) as an ingredient for fertilizer.
I think the Dutch could make a politically incentivized switch to economically shift of farming for more organic material based farming because the soil would better retain water. There is a good amount of demand for local high quality organic foods. Industrial farming could fall out of favor for more traditional based somewhat rural infrastructure and diversify the farms profit leading to a sense of more personal economic control.
The problem is that organic farming is the art of taking land that will feed hundreds and making it feed dozens. Organic farming is not efficient on a large scale because it uses more water and land to produce the same amount of food.
@@Debbie338 Yes, it depends how well Netherlands can maintain global trade relations. I think Netherlands doesn't need to compete for food they are very rich. I think they could specialize. The US, Brazil, and Argentina have the most arable land in the world and are much safe long term trade options.
@@Debbie338 Did you know the growing area for wine is moving north from France because of the global warming? The south of England will start growing the best grapes. The dutch don't have hills for grapes but could have very strong organic growing cycles.
@@avery4528 An interesting take. I’m not really familiar with the situation as far as insects or fungi in Northern Europe, and how problematic it would be. We just got back from a vacation in Amsterdam and adored it, so I wish them success!
@@avery4528 I did not know that about France. I know they abandoned organic wine for the most part, because Copper Sulfate is one of the few organic pesticides and it’s highly toxic.
We have plenty of water here which is managed properly. But hey this fits into the...let's get rid of the farmers so we can build more concrete crap narrative.
It's just like here in Limburg, Belgium. When it rains for a few days they say the rivers are over flooding and when it's hot for a few days they say it's drying up.
So we've had a few very dry summers and there's panic? Calm yourselves a bit. There has been alot more wind coming from not western directions and because of this, things have changed a bit. This is probably very temporary due to the sun's activity being the lowest in a long time. Sun spots were close to zero.
I live in the Netherlands and 4minutes into this video and I already know this is complete bullshit. we've had no droughts(we literally didn't have any), the summers we have had the last years are very mild (as in summer season is basically just spring) and only last summer did we have an actual summer season of like one month. But that was just a normal summer season that we used to always have. The weather in the Netherlands has basically stayed the same for years. The only thing that has a direct impact on our ecosystem and our environment, is rain in the Netherlands combined with government intervention. For example, Waterschappen disperses most of our water during spring because otherwise the land becomes too wet for seeding crops. However this causes that for every year that there is less water during summer. Every year it's the same old story from the media and from NPCS and i'm fucking sick of it. The same thing sort of also happens in the UK, however they get a water problem mostly due to the neglect of their infrastructure which makes them waste water.
I don't know the situation IN the Netherlands, but where I live (near Münster in Germany, 30 km east of Enschede) is a truly drought actually. Since 2018 25% of the trees died because of lack of water. The little rivers Berkel and Vechte (which flow to NL) have constantly very low water levels since 2018. The average of annual precipitation was 780 l/m2 in the time of 1980-2010. In 2018 the annual rainfall was just 510 l/m2, and in 2022 just 480 l/m2 had fallen until 7.Dezember.
You are missing the main issue. When the Netherlands reach a befolking of 10million the government egged us on to leave and go to Australia NZ Canada. Now the befolki g has doubled by illegals and cities have taken over huge swathes of farmland. Cities use water and the hard surfaces forces water away. The farmers are now being told to leave for more city growth for the non-dutch. That is the elephant in the room you miss
Biggest issue is that our farmers want to remove all the water quickly. And if we dont, their lands are more difficult to use for farming. Thus they keep lobbying against water retention
@ @René PleinAir i am talking about the changes in rainfall & drought the Netherlands will face due to climate change, so yes , really, I believe water management is a mayor challenge for the Netherlands in the upcoming years to tackle the changing climate.
There is a rumor that if you have any problem with water, the Dutch will take care of it. The problem is that even if there is a drought in Europe, the countries on the Rhine themselves will do everything they can to store and hold back fresh water. What leads to restrictions on shipping on the Upper Rhine is the lack of water in the Netherlands. But everyone tries to provide their population and agriculture with water. And NL gets what's left over.
Already done... Between the 70's and the 90's we enwalled (dyked up) each river prone to flooding. Since then we changed philosophy and dug out way more room for the rivers when they're near flooding. This extra room is supposed to form extra buffers to retain as much water as possible for dry spells.
your intro to the video sounds exactly like business insider video playlist " So Expensive" that caught me off-guard haha sleek video editing and great explanation! 👀👀
Hey Hugo, A suggestion for a future topic is on "how difficult it is to "simply" move a farm", specifically in The Netherlands. Not all land is suitable for growing vegetables, thats why NL has so much flowers and cows. It suits the reclaimed land, but veggies won't grow in it nicely.
Farms sadly are quite a big part of the problem . They need low groundwater levels to be optimal for growing crops AND the use a lot of the remaining water to irrigate said crops . Some harsh and difficult choices will have to be made in order to solve this problem .
Would be interesting to see how this compares with Belgium, as it is facing the same issue and how the agreements of minimal water passing through the rivers impact the cooperation between the two nations
nice video but i have one thing, salt water is heavier then fresh water, so even if it seeps under the dykes it wont do harm cause the fresh watertable is higher then the salt water one
Except the freshwater table is much lower, up to several meters, than sea level near the coast. So yeah, seawater seepage is a problem, especially for places like Kennemerland and the Westland.
Nice info video, but you cut quite a few corners.. First and foremost, the program "room for the river" started over 15 years ago multi purposing the floodplains (uiterwaarden) to the way the were decades ago (no houses!) I think it's one of the reasons there were no deaths in Limburg in 2021.. because this project was close enough to completion to even handle that flood! The last years people, farmers and the regional water authorities started to realize that our intricate structure to get rid of water was too good at getting rid of water. Now groundwater levels, the water levels of rivers and ditches and even the base level of the IJselmeer have been set higher the last years, buffering more water for droughts. You end with stating the problem of limited space in The Netherlands, but aren't we proving to be able to reinvent our current infrastructure and multi purpose our available space? As with almost everything "we're not there yet".. but I do think "we" are handeling it all quite nicely ;)
Im dutch, and we have more than enough water. It is false to think the netherlands is running out of water. We are just not used to using our water efficiently. We keep refuse to accept climate change, and refuse climate adaptation. If our lawmakers don't act we will run out of water, but that's a political and geopolitical (see rhine and maas river) issue. Not a engineering or climate issue.
It is the bigest weakness of the netherlands that we can't adapt to changes in our environment quickly. We require endless bureaucracy, and people have the power to disrupt infrastructure projects to the extend where only a fool would be interested in initiating a process to the minute extent of the ontpoldering of the hedwiegepolder, let alone any other infastructural project that helps others. Our housing crisis is nothing more than a crisis on our democracy, same for the endless litigation of the hedwiegepolder. If people have the able to disrupt necessary changes to infrastructure, water and emissions, there is going to be a huge cost associated to this in the form of droughts, economic costs and inability to build new houses. Let me put it this way china would have no problem here. The rules take too long to force changes, and landowners are protected too much by the system.
We will not be able to deal with this in time, because there is no political will to make painful decisions that benefit us in the long run. This will be a huge problem in 2050, and it isn't money, engineering or anything else. It is politics, democracy, and the time lag associated with our legal system. Really this problem is no different from the nitrogen oxide (stikstof crisis) problem in the netherlands. We can fix it, technology is there waiting for us to use it. Yet we won't and someday we will pay the price. It is the future rider problem of democracy.
As a Dutchman myself, I never understood why most farmers don't have water silo's or bassins as a buffer. During the wet season you can simply pump the excess water into the bassins, and at least have a xx weeks of water buffer for a dry period. Ideally farmers can do this collectively to keep costs down as much as possible. It's not all that difficult to do. Greenhouse farmers are required by law to collect all the water that comes down on their greenhouse, for good reasons.
I think the reason to that is because a "wet season" isnt typical to the dutch climate at all, it used to rain all year or atleast in somewhat equal amounts every season so then farmers dont need to store any water after all its right there in the drain channels and the rivers right next to them. now with the ground water level lowering that is no longer an option. from what ive heard this all doesnt matter too much for drinking water in most of the netherlands since it gets pumped up from dunes and groundwater, i may be wrong about that though
@@dutchnugget8101 True, drinking water is not yet really a concern. I say 'yet' because more and more people come to The Netherlands, and some water company's did raise some questions if their water capacity is big enough to provide enough water for all the people... something to think about. But the issue about water shortages for farmers isn't really new, sometimes droughts happen. I just don't understand why most (agricultural) farmers don't collect (rain) water when there is enough of it. The costs of doing so aren't all that much, especially when compared to the potential losses of crop.
I hate the bullshit with lack of space, for me it applies to my love of graveyard which in Netherlands are small, there's not enough of them, the graves are replaced to quickly and instead of packing as many graves as possible into the graveyard they make stupid grave-parks. It's disgusting, if you don't love your dead you don't deserve life.
There is plenty of water for every citizen and every business, all year every year. Some people, primarily farmers, just have unrealistic expectations. You can't have super fast drainage to operate heavy machinery right after it rains AND have water through a month long dry spell in the peak of summer. Either we retain the water or we drain it.
I've seen people defending the farmers position saying that its their right and saying Netherlands wanting to reduce farmland was an attempt to make everybody starve and eat bugs Seriusly, some people just can not accept that this isn't a pipe dream. That you can't have everything If one farmer qas using that logic, no problem. But ALL of them want to keep spaming fertelizers (wich makes water retension by soil and absorption by plants harder) and want to keep using non existent water The dutch NEED more swamps
@@joaquimbarbosa896 Yes, a lot of people haven't the slightest idea what the actual policy proposals entail. They're not even currently planning to reduce that type of farming (in fields) but only to reduce the number of cattle, pigs and poultry in order to reduce nitrogen deposition. Given that pastures take up about 50% of our nation's land area (not even exaggerating), this should free up some space for things like moors and wetlands to help with water retention as well, but the main focus of the policy is to reduce nitrogen deposition.
@@platinumsun4632 Because pretty much all of the land is arable. Areas too steep to farm on are limited to a few moraines, there is soil and fresh water literally everywhere, so every square inch of land that is not built up is either a field or a pasture.
It seems that water holding and capturing solutions would be what when there is excessive rain in the Autumn and Winter. This then can be used as drinking water or to put back into the soil during spring and summer. Also, bring back some marshlands would be helpful too.
Besides national, provincial and municipality elections, we also have waterschappen elections. It seems like this is getting more and more important...
Oh, our government is removing 3000 farmers as a solution. But instead of building homes for refugees on farmland polders, we should flood some polders, not out of protest nessecarily, but to create storage for fresh water and leveling up our groundwater. Water shortage is becoming an annual event here.
Hey dutchies! You can rebuild based on the old medieval agriculture, where ponds turn into a fields and back periodicaly. This adds large emount of water to the countryside, and acts as a natural fertilizer. Freshwater fish are valuable commodity, and being renewable will make it more than competitive compared to fishing in dying, polluted oceans. There is also a very good ratio between feed used and meat produced for fish, unlike pork and beef. Ponds may be used to raise ducks too.
The most important thing what the netherlands have are the ASML chips. The world needs this for all tech innovations. And it is an Dutch company with the HQ in the netherlands.
yeah, i'm studying something about this exact concept. in early versions of waterworks the flooding was avoided by simply having your fields on lower ground, and your farm itself on a slightly raised 'island'. when floods happened, your fields would flood, but your house would stay high and dry, and in a short while you were back in business. Then, peat harvest started. heaps of organics like dead reeds built up in layers in wet, swampy areas. people collected this, dried it and used it as fuel because it burns like a motherfucker. When you remove the layer though, i'm pretty sure they just ended up with a bunch of waist high water. So they started building dykes to pump it out and then everything changed. why build the little islands when you have the dykes already? bonus, we have enough water. we just get waaayyy too much of it once in a while.
@@brooxeyyy I meant one or two seasons as a pond, and then 3-5 like a field. Can be used for fish, ducks, rice in water cycle, and as normal field otherwise. Turns 20% of farmlands into water surface.
I'm Dutch. I watched a video two days ago that 'they' are saying England is drying up too. Don't fall for it. We and England have a lot of rainy days. Too much even
I think maybe people think in terms of short and long term which don’t really reflect reality. There are a lot of cycles in nature that last long enough to make us think something is normal when it really isn’t. So the Dutch may have built what they thought were permanent solutions, that now appear not to have been.
In small parts yes. The farmers have to adapt to a LOT of changes. In part is sort of their own fault, because they are important they have some power in/over the government and thus they pushed the government to not force certain changes that were needed 10 maybe 20 or 30 years ago on the farmers.
I already know that using certain vegetation helps to absorp the water and hold it for the droughts. They already are doing this in deserts near water and land that have become desert and need water during droughts. Desalination is expensive and energy intensive....not a good solution. I think they will either redesign the dykes and/or the retention of water via new materials to keep the water (e.g. drinking water under compression in underground tanks or resevoires and/or change the need by developing more efficient crop. And the meat industry eventually will have to change. If we can grow meat in a factory that is equally good. The amount of livestock=>plants needed=>water needed will go down drastically.
Buddy, I dont think you noticed that the last gigantic almost unheard of world wide news dry period that dried up many rivers around the world like in China, Croatia, Netherlands and Japan completely dried up tiny rivers and lakes in the Netherlands, We are not losing water overtime, We just lost a huge amount at once and that is why you are seeing the huge dip of water in the Netherlands according to graphs.
We are also losing water over time, for a long time already. Salinization has been ongoing for much of agricultural lands in Friesland and more coastal regions also the compacting of ground in agricultural lands makes for less rainwater going through to the groundwater and draining into the rivers instead both problems that have been noted since the 70s and 80s and haven't had a good response.
in portugal we are building water dessalinization plants... a few years ago there was a city of 100 000 people that got with no water and it was supplied by tank-trucks
It's really simple, we are pumping too much ground water out to make the farmers happy, so they won't sink in the soil when working the land with their heavy machines. Resulting in dry hard soil that is incapable of absorbing the water that rains on our rainy country. We have plenty water but it's managed wrong. 🤷🏼♂️
If this happened 50 years ago, I would have had no doubt the Dutch could fix it in a good manner. Nowadays I highly doubt it, as a Dutch person myself. We have lost our engineering spirit, we have insane green lobbies that fight common sense every step of the way. We don't know what good economics are if it would bite us in the dick. We actively hate and dismante our culture and love to improve every country but our own. Don't get me wrong, we will try and spend about 15 times more then estimated. It will result in a slightly better situation at immense costs to everyone and everything. When it is done we all laugh at how big a failure this was. Enter the commissions created to determine where it went wrong and after 2 years we get to hear in details how we messed-up. Next project is rinse and repeat.
Yes it is so annoying. But I think that if we work together with the PVV we might be able to circumvent the problem. They have spent years preparing to kick out the ottoman winters and make way for the dutch winters.
“God made the world, but the Dutch made the Netherlands.”
Ssssstt.
Stille Willem spreekt, mensen.
Oké? Luisteren dus.
Ga je gang Willem.
I approve of this quote.
And now god is taking it back.
@@gfroese4799 no it’s getting dryer lmao did u even watch
Cringe
Important distinction for the quote at 1:15, these generally aren't irrigation canals because the land is plenty wet with groundwater. They are drainage canals used to pump away rising ground water.
And that is part of the problem: the netherlands has so much agriculture, and they all need the water to be fairly low. And with storms, the water thus needs to be removed quickly. Nowadays, these agriculture areas needs to be used as storage.
So in fact the exact opposite
Thing is due to drowth and pumping up that ground water we still don't have any water. Just for context sake. The smaller canals between meadows are in trouble bc groundwater irrigation. That also threaten's drinking water and so on. Full circle. There are solutions when you recycle that water with added filter; but none of that is happening. Agriculture pays a high price for that while it is system that should pay that price for neglacting groundwater preservation. If you use river water for example in wet season with filter it can lower pressure on already low groundwater. System isnt built on crisis but on growth. It needs a mindset shift from all of us. Nomatter wich side you are on politics wise. Noone is served when we point fingers at eachother. If want Polarisation to end the only answer is to roll up those sleeves and just do it. Ain't no easy answer here that can please all. But can we make at least make an effort to make it work for all.
If I understand anything about the Netherlands, their engineers will work this one out and their companies will develop the solution into a profitable export. Without invading their neighbours, acrimony or fuss, too. Hup, Holland, Hup.
Their is a chance things will not go well this time around: the government has outsourced everything and they have no experts anymore. They have so little expertise they don't really know which company is best to hire to advise them. That's what I hear from people who have worked in the government.
Of course, the Netherlands are perhaps rich enough to solve these problems, but what about a country like Bangladesh?
@@steveholmes5939 great question
@@steveholmes5939 the netherlands, despite its rich appearance, is dealing with quite a lot of issues on every level
(i honestly wouldn't be surprised if we see civil wars pop up with the next few years )
@@pauliusiv6169 Extremely unlikely, the dutch are much too complacent for that.
The positive point is that NL has very strong water-management organizations and companies. At the moment, a lot is invested to adapt procedures and infrastructure to adapt to the changing climate. For instance, in my neighborhood, all streets got new sewer systems. Rainwater is not collected in huge pits, not flooded away via the sewers. Also, the Ijselmeer (the large central "lake") gets a dynamic height. Cities actively remove tiles and add trees. So: sincere attempts to battle the consequences of climate change.
Problem is a lot of manager type guys who leech all the money and nothing happens.
Apparently, my comment attracts various kinds of stray lights.
@ inderdaad. Men schijnt ervan overtuigd te zijn dat het klimaat stil moet staan. Mijn vriend, een expert op dit gebied, lacht zich een kriek om de onzin!
@ complots are existing since the creation of the world, but do not believe them. Everybody is sincere, honest and transparant, with the best intentions.... some people are still laying in coma and will never wake up.
And tings like the Sandmotor (zandmotor) just south of Scheveningen, to let the water and currents strenghten our coast with higher dunes and wider beaches.
Mwah, there’s enough water, just at the wrong time at the wrong place. This is an engineering problems at which the Dutch are exceptionally good. Have full confidence it can and will be solved.
Yeah dutch are really good at doing stuff, if italy was in the same position we would already be dry (italy already is getting dry and it's like mountains everywhere)
@@no_name4796 Yeah we are good at engineering. Sadly it's not the lack of engineering/solutions that is holding us back, but other problems. Space is in my opinion a bigger problem than many foreign and native people (want to) admit. For example Italy has a surface of about 300.000 km2 while having a population of about 60 mil, the Netherlands has a surface of about 42.000 km2 with a population of about 18 mil. A quick calculation will show that Italy has roughly 200 people per km2 while the Netherlands has about 428 per km2. Now I am aware that Italy has mountains which aren't really suitable for living, so in reality Italy is more populated than reflected here, but I think you get the point. All these people have to have housing, services, infrastructure and work. It's become that much of a problem that getting a project approved is very difficult if it involves building anything. Which is also part of the reason why we currently have a housing problem, and why certain engineering projects might not get (or take forever to be) realized.
Edit: To make things worse, the projects that do get accepted often have a lot of money backing them, or easier said they come from big organizations. And you can imagine that their primary concern isn't to solve problems, but to make money.
Only issue is our visionless president with no regards for long term effects nor the future.
@@willemvanoranje5724 How can you call yourself Willem van Oranje and then talk about our president. I assume you mean our government or our prime minister. By the way our king should also have some understanding since apparently he has a Master's degree in watermanagement.
@@richardbloemenkamp8532 Can the King influence said matters? It's rather ceremonial these days...
Back in my days we got shot while doing our duty, to serve the people.
These days it's just getting a paycheck for being born.
The president is to blame for the terrible state NL is in, seeing he's already in rule for 12 years or more.... could have done something about it by now dont you think?
Drought leads to innovations. Drought also causes salinization: seawater that ends up in our soil and waters. To prevent salinization, there is now a 'bubble screen' at the bottom of the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal. A bubble screen is a large tube with holes through which air is blown. These bubbles stop the salt water from the sea.
How does that work? I understand that fish may be reluctant to swim through a curtain of bubbles, but how do you scare seawater?
@@eljanrimsa5843 The bubble screen is a tube on the bottom of the North Sea Canal. They pump air through it, which enters the water and rises to the top. Salt water is heavier than fresh water and therefore flows over the bottom. The air bubbles from the bubble screen raise the salt water
Well, I hope that the Dutch win over the US at the match
That's the main takeaway of this video
@@yeru2480 it would make them temporarily (for 2 minutes) forget about this problem they have, fake relief, at least
It's 2:0 for the Netherlands, whoop whoop
@@sjoerdv22 congratulations 🎊 👌
Coming from 61 minutes into the match, i can confirm the Netherlands seems to be winning (2 goals to the US's 0 goals)
Maybe this is just me being Dutch, but this all sounds like a fun challenge to me!
did all the short dutchies drown and go extinct? why are young dutch guys so hot?
We have plenty of water...But we have no money because of CO2 reducement taxes by the gouverment
Really nice video, wouldn't have imaged the Dutch are so low on fresh water. Impressive how you managed to condense all of that into just 7 minutes!
Appreciate the fairphone sponsorship as well, I use their phone myself and was pleasantly surprised to see them sponsoring.
I remember from a friend that said in a school book where the Netherlands are the third largest importer of water, only behind Malta and UAE.
Its fake news
@@VDMOOLN sauce?
We in The Netherlands live on the largest gasbubble of Europe and have a lack of gas... We have an enormous freshwater reservoir in the form of a lake called IJsselmeer. Our king seems to have a PhD in watermanagement. And you believe what they are telling us is true?? The motto of the WEF is: You will own nothing and be happy! So the energy prices here go sky high!
@@tyvamakes5226 Hahahahahahahahaa. What a bollocks.
Another major issue is that homes built on wooden piles are rotting with the successive floods and droughts.
Well, lucky for us wooden piles can be replaced by concrete ones.
@ Just think about it, Rene.
Think for instance about the Delta Plan after the 1953 flooding. We even kept the Westerschelde in open connection with the sea to serve the local fishing economies and to save the unique wildlife.
We didn't argue too much about costs back then. It was a major threat and we simply took care of the problem.
That's how I know that if and when the future of historical Amsterdam gets at steak, national pride will kick in and we will solve the problem. And solve it without any home or business owner having to pay for it. No matter the ultimate overall cost.
We can afford ourselves to organize a project in order to save our capitol. Especially when it's done in one giant, well organized event, phased out over multiple years.
That's how things get done in our little, well organized country. That's how it works.
And you know that just as well as I.
Good greetz from Utrecht.
The good thing is that the Dutch do have the resources and knowhow to fix this. There will be some issues, but I am sure they'll figure it out.
we are looking
One of the problems is that farmers like the keep the water table low in wet periods, because that's better for the crops, but that also means there isn't much of a buffer for dry periods.
The drought is caused by purposefully guiding water that accumulates during the autumn and winter into the sea to make farmland dry enough to be worked early in the year. The shortage in the summer is for most parts of the Netherlands easy to solve by letting less water flow into the sea and keeping the groundwater levels up.
Wouldn't that also increase the risk during surges and floods?
An innovation to the dykes would be to use them to store water between two walls behind my the sea wall, and built higher than the sea level so that fresh water would flow into the ground aquifer and protect from salt water intrusion. With these built to store sufficient water for the whole year drought with no longer be an issue. Probably building with steel in an enclosed arch hemi-tube shape designed to be in membrane stress when full would be most economical. Cover them with solar to get extra energy, and some kind of energy storage would serve the electricity grid and be used to power pumps during storms. Lots of synergies would improve economics. I have never heard of anything like this. Alternatively letting the rivers flow into big bags to store fresh water from storms would be inexpensive. Netherlands is advanced in terraforming, so my stagnate?
Won't need that soon with the government shutting down farming.
@@Panteni87 the surges and floods are kept outside so far I guess
I'm just a silent viewer amazed by the content. But in times of demotivation remember me and many others are always behind of you.
Thank you! :)
More rain, less water. So we have more water, less water. Where does the water go then? I'm confused lol
Your clickbait title got me to the video, but it's very misleading. The Dutch have more water per m2 space than most countries in the world. Just also happen to have more people and loads of industries that have built up to take advantage of it. It's a question of supply (over)demand.
That 'renewable water index'' is just farcical. NL is next to Bangladesh, probably the wettest country in the world and as a result supporting a huge population. This is a manmade problem, not a supply problem.
Amazing video as always, as someone living in the Netherlands I can confirm first hand the water management situation you described
Hoog sent me here. Not disappointed!
Really good content, well performed research and good explained! Thank you, looking forward for more!
Wait, fairphone's making sponsorships in videos?? NOICE
To my knowledge the IJssel Lake is a fresh water lake, becoming that after the former South Sea was closed by the Closure Dyke. The IJssel river still keeps flowing into it, and only when there is too much water in it, they will pump it out. But they never pump (salty) sea water into the IJssel Lake. When looking on Wikipedia about the IJssel Lake I quote from Wikipedia : "Due to considerable amounts of water from the Rhine flowing through its distributary IJssel into the IJsselmeer, the closed off bay functions as a large freshwater reservoir, serving as a source for agriculture and drinking water. Outlet sluices in the Afsluitdijk regulate the water level of the IJsselmeer.". In theory we could even make a big polder inside the North Sea where the Rhine exists, and make a side 'buffer' area to catch that water before it flows into the North Sea. We are technologically advanced enough to make that polder, and also making sure no saltwater can go through the dikes of this theoretical polder, that would then act as a water buffer.
Thank you for sharing the information. I actually have a question.
Can you please tell me the water of Ijsselmeer and Markermeer, where are they came from? Are they all from Rhine or also rain?
Thank you very much in advance
How about not importing so many immigrants into the Netherlands which as you simply said doesnt have much space and a tremendous population density of about 430 p/km2 which would solve the cultural and criminal problem, the housing problem AND the resource and lack of space problem (thus helps with water) ?
Would you still complain if the Dutch were having more children instead of immigrants?
@@ClannCholmain Our population has rarely gone in decline, ever since we started with statics anyways. Just lacking certain people for certain work, which has deeper problems
@@ClannCholmain well they dont. and if i have to choose between a bunch of African and Moroccan immigrants who care about weed and drugs plus some of them being illegal vs Dutch people having more children who are honest and hard working ofcoaaaaaarse I'll choose the immigrants!! otherwise i would be racist dude..
That being said I dont see why an European ethnic group like the Dutch would suddenly make a huge population growth they never did in history (the 60s baby boomer pop growth was nothing like the population growth now in Africa, Pakistan, India and etc)
Their over management of the sea has left them the Isseljmeer, and they are going to be able to survive.
We running out of normal leaders with a good hart !!! Thats a big problem.
Well i am dutch man i live in the Netherlands and what you are telling to the people here on UA-cam is nonsens it is now winter and it rains every day here and it is cold as hell here,
And we have enough water what to you think about the Big lake in the middle of my country that lake yeah that is where our drinking water comes from what comes out of the tap,
We have no what problems in my country.
Today we celebrate the Netherlands 2:0 win over the US at the World Cup. Tomorrow we think about water issues.🤪
as long there is enough water for the breweries it will be OK
hhahahaha and we fix it.....
But is was 3-1?
Never mind they are nicking farmers land big time.They can turn them into lakes.
About the alpine glaciers: because they are melting rapidly and release a lot of water during hot summers they actually partly compensate for the droughts. This will be the case for the next 20 years or so until they become too small to have a significant impact.
Also this is a video you can make for any Central-European country. At least we have a lot of knowledge here and over the last decade a lot of money has been invested to maintain as much water as possible during dry periods and at the same time provide retention areas for the water when there is too much. I am pretty sure there are a lot of countries much more heavily impacted by the changing hydrological cyclus than the Dutch
Solar cycle 26 predictions indicate we will see a reduction in global temperatures by approx 1 degree celsius wiping out most of the temperature gains (1.25 - 1.5 degrees celsius gains) from the last 150 years and taking the Earth back to temperatures more in line with those experienced in the little ice age. The ocean conveyor belt bringing warmer waters to the Europe and the North Atlantic is also in danger of breaking down. This will have the effect of reducing temps further in areas that currently benefit from the warming. During the little ice age the Thames river would regularly freeze over allowing ice skating; better polish up your blades.
I see the mont blanc glacier here in italy every week and it melts a bit in the summer and grows during winter again. Dont see any change in size
@@damo5701 yes and santa claus is real too. Keep on dreaming my friend
@@damo5701 ELFSTEDENTOCHT!!!!!!!
Your forgetting 1 BIG point. The farming industry wants dry land to work on and they have a BIG political influence on our water politics. So we keep are water levels pretty low with no buffers. This also causes many places to sink when there is drought. This causes to droughts to be harder then needed and the effect on homes are huge. 1.5 millions homes are damaged because of this and need big structural repairs.
And when the ground sinks, ur not getting it back elevated to normal level. So we keep on sinking over time. Which is a big problem over time.
Roberto
What is presented as a problem, is no problem at all. Rijkswaterstaat knows the solutions. She does what she has to do. Why? Because our water management is not privatized.
The Dutch probably need to build desalinated water reservoirs all along the coast, so that any water that seeps through become less salty. That also allows the desalinated water to first fill up the water table inland. The best is to wean all human-related activities off natural water onto desalinated water, and return all the natural water back. Australia is also facing the same drought conditions with very intense rainfall, but all the flood water flows back to the sea, and desalination plants are only activated when we need to top up water use due to depleting natural water sources.
This is just one of the problems the Netherlands will face in the coming decades. All of these problems go hand in hand. Some of the others:
*Farmland depletion,* caused by intensive farming with artificial fertilizers. If this isn't solved in 20 years, large parts of Dutch farmland will become inarable.
*Reduction in biodiversity / Impoverishment of the ground,* caused by nitrogen oxides and ammonia from fertilizers and livestock excrement leaking into nature areas. This has a very significant negative effect on the local ecosystems. Mismanagement on this front has lead to the farmer protests you might have read about in the past year, as well as delays and extra costs for all ongoing construction projects, hitting every industry.
*Rising sea levels* due to climate change will require improvement of the flood defences earlier than expected as well as forcing the sea surge barriers to close more often, causing delays to international shipping.
*Earthquakes* in Groningen, caused by drilling for natural gas have caused the government to slowly stop the extraction of gas, worsening supply problems for the EU as a whole. If current geopolitical events keep going on, the government might have no other choice but to start drilling again.
There's also the *housing crisis* and *fractured political landscape,* but I don't want to turn this comment into a novel.
"in 20 years, large parts of Dutch farmland will become inarable." do you mean becouse of toxins? Sustainable fertilizers exist but they're not economically appealing and give lower crop yields. So soil fertility is not an issue.
@@Zero-oh8vm Yes, sustainable fertilizers exist (or at the very least, papers have been written to prove they would work), but most Dutch agriculture businesses operate on razor-thin margins, needing to maximize crop yields to stay afloat. The current system is unsustainable.
@@qwertyuiopzxcfgh totally agree with you, one positive remark is that there is a factory who processes cow manure (wich they can't inject into the soil anymore) as an ingredient for fertilizer.
Great video as always. Great to see sponsors like fairphone as well. Thanks a lot
I think the Dutch could make a politically incentivized switch to economically shift of farming for more organic material based farming because the soil would better retain water. There is a good amount of demand for local high quality organic foods. Industrial farming could fall out of favor for more traditional based somewhat rural infrastructure and diversify the farms profit leading to a sense of more personal economic control.
The problem is that organic farming is the art of taking land that will feed hundreds and making it feed dozens. Organic farming is not efficient on a large scale because it uses more water and land to produce the same amount of food.
@@Debbie338 Yes, it depends how well Netherlands can maintain global trade relations. I think Netherlands doesn't need to compete for food they are very rich. I think they could specialize. The US, Brazil, and Argentina have the most arable land in the world and are much safe long term trade options.
@@Debbie338 Did you know the growing area for wine is moving north from France because of the global warming? The south of England will start growing the best grapes. The dutch don't have hills for grapes but could have very strong organic growing cycles.
@@avery4528 An interesting take. I’m not really familiar with the situation as far as insects or fungi in Northern Europe, and how problematic it would be. We just got back from a vacation in Amsterdam and adored it, so I wish them success!
@@avery4528 I did not know that about France. I know they abandoned organic wine for the most part, because Copper Sulfate is one of the few organic pesticides and it’s highly toxic.
this video is insightful and really well done. liked, commented and Subscribed!
We have plenty of water here which is managed properly. But hey this fits into the...let's get rid of the farmers so we can build more concrete crap narrative.
It's just like here in Limburg, Belgium. When it rains for a few days they say the rivers are over flooding and when it's hot for a few days they say it's drying up.
So we've had a few very dry summers and there's panic? Calm yourselves a bit. There has been alot more wind coming from not western directions and because of this, things have changed a bit. This is probably very temporary due to the sun's activity being the lowest in a long time. Sun spots were close to zero.
Sure........Climate change is a hoax.... Sunspots however......
Please go educate yourself and stop spouting nonsense !
And don 't forget la ninja and Tonga Tonga......
Every second, 2.6 million liters of fresh water flows into the sea at Hoek van Holland.
I'm honestly interested in ruggedized I.T.
Ukraine needs fairphones
Yes, and Ukraine needs f-16s
The Netherlands are always interesting.
Thanks for an enlightening presentation.
This is like wet climate warming hysteria.
They will run out of food also if they keep shutting down farms.
No, they really won't. The Dutch will continue to adapt environmentally and feed most of Europe their veggies
Weren't we supposed to be under water again because of global warming or so???
I live in the Netherlands and 4minutes into this video and I already know this is complete bullshit.
we've had no droughts(we literally didn't have any), the summers we have had the last years are very mild (as in summer season is basically just spring) and only last summer did we have an actual summer season of like one month. But that was just a normal summer season that we used to always have.
The weather in the Netherlands has basically stayed the same for years.
The only thing that has a direct impact on our ecosystem and our environment, is rain in the Netherlands combined with government intervention.
For example, Waterschappen disperses most of our water during spring because otherwise the land becomes too wet for seeding crops. However this causes that for every year that there is less water during summer.
Every year it's the same old story from the media and from NPCS and i'm fucking sick of it. The same thing sort of also happens in the UK, however they get a water problem mostly due to the neglect of their infrastructure which makes them waste water.
I don't know the situation IN the Netherlands, but where I live (near Münster in Germany, 30 km east of Enschede) is a truly drought actually.
Since 2018 25% of the trees died because of lack of water. The little rivers Berkel and Vechte (which flow to NL) have constantly very low water levels since 2018. The average of annual precipitation was 780 l/m2 in the time of 1980-2010. In 2018 the annual rainfall was just 510 l/m2, and in 2022 just 480 l/m2 had fallen until 7.Dezember.
@@gisbertvonromberg2227 we're not talking about Germany here but NL, and we had no natural droughts here what so ever.
Sounds very much like the other programmes which are targeting the farmers ....
You are missing the main issue. When the Netherlands reach a befolking of 10million the government egged us on to leave and go to Australia NZ Canada. Now the befolki g has doubled by illegals and cities have taken over huge swathes of farmland. Cities use water and the hard surfaces forces water away. The farmers are now being told to leave for more city growth for the non-dutch. That is the elephant in the room you miss
kanker immgranten
I am addicted the Netherlands water videos, please make more
Biggest issue is that our farmers want to remove all the water quickly. And if we dont, their lands are more difficult to use for farming. Thus they keep lobbying against water retention
Also exporting vegetables is basically exporting water just with higher price.
the problem is too many people on small amount of land.
@@user-lm5hi4cz7i yeah we should stop taking in a city the size of tilburg every year
Great journalism Hugo! A good overview of the greatest challenge for the Netherlands regarding climate change 🌊
@ @René PleinAir i am talking about the changes in rainfall & drought the Netherlands will face due to climate change, so yes , really, I believe water management is a mayor challenge for the Netherlands in the upcoming years to tackle the changing climate.
There is a rumor that if you have any problem with water, the Dutch will take care of it.
The problem is that even if there is a drought in Europe, the countries on the Rhine themselves will do everything they can to store and hold back fresh water. What leads to restrictions on shipping on the Upper Rhine is the lack of water in the Netherlands.
But everyone tries to provide their population and agriculture with water. And NL gets what's left over.
we are looking
This sounds like a job for permaculture. Perhaps the entire Rhine basin should have water retention earthworks dug.
Already done...
Between the 70's and the 90's we enwalled (dyked up) each river prone to flooding.
Since then we changed philosophy and dug out way more room for the rivers when they're near flooding. This extra room is supposed to form extra buffers to retain as much water as possible for dry spells.
The dutch can live with us but we need their weed. Sincerely germany
NL became one of the most rich country in the world because of... water. As a rich county I am sure they will find a solution for that.... as always.
your intro to the video sounds exactly like business insider video playlist " So Expensive" that caught me off-guard haha
sleek video editing and great explanation! 👀👀
The Dutch has no Water, the Dutch needs no Water.
Jij snapt em.
Lord of Rings vibe...
We have enough
In rainy days its pumped into the sea
Hey Hugo, A suggestion for a future topic is on "how difficult it is to "simply" move a farm", specifically in The Netherlands.
Not all land is suitable for growing vegetables, thats why NL has so much flowers and cows. It suits the reclaimed land, but veggies won't grow in it nicely.
Keep your farms
Farms sadly are quite a big part of the problem . They need low groundwater levels to be optimal for growing crops AND the use a lot of the remaining water to irrigate said crops .
Some harsh and difficult choices will have to be made in order to solve this problem .
@@Maverick21491 No farms are not the problem. Dutch farms are some of the most efficient in the world and without farms we have no food
we are a;ready busy with this projects. so netherland will have water.
Hearing Dutch pronouciation said properly on UA-cam is so nice.
We are not drying up, totally BS
Would be interesting to see how this compares with Belgium, as it is facing the same issue and how the agreements of minimal water passing through the rivers impact the cooperation between the two nations
Well, look at the July 2021.
nice video but i have one thing, salt water is heavier then fresh water, so even if it seeps under the dykes it wont do harm cause the fresh watertable is higher then the salt water one
Except the freshwater table is much lower, up to several meters, than sea level near the coast. So yeah, seawater seepage is a problem, especially for places like Kennemerland and the Westland.
Osmose is a thing.....
4:01 "Is it okay when I write it with 2 F's and 1 S?"
Everybody: "Mhhhh..... Go on, go on..."
Nice info video, but you cut quite a few corners..
First and foremost, the program "room for the river" started over 15 years ago multi purposing the floodplains (uiterwaarden) to the way the were decades ago (no houses!) I think it's one of the reasons there were no deaths in Limburg in 2021.. because this project was close enough to completion to even handle that flood!
The last years people, farmers and the regional water authorities started to realize that our intricate structure to get rid of water was too good at getting rid of water. Now groundwater levels, the water levels of rivers and ditches and even the base level of the IJselmeer have been set higher the last years, buffering more water for droughts.
You end with stating the problem of limited space in The Netherlands, but aren't we proving to be able to reinvent our current infrastructure and multi purpose our available space?
As with almost everything "we're not there yet".. but I do think "we" are handeling it all quite nicely ;)
Im dutch, and we have more than enough water. It is false to think the netherlands is running out of water. We are just not used to using our water efficiently. We keep refuse to accept climate change, and refuse climate adaptation. If our lawmakers don't act we will run out of water, but that's a political and geopolitical (see rhine and maas river) issue. Not a engineering or climate issue.
It is the bigest weakness of the netherlands that we can't adapt to changes in our environment quickly. We require endless bureaucracy, and people have the power to disrupt infrastructure projects to the extend where only a fool would be interested in initiating a process to the minute extent of the ontpoldering of the hedwiegepolder, let alone any other infastructural project that helps others. Our housing crisis is nothing more than a crisis on our democracy, same for the endless litigation of the hedwiegepolder. If people have the able to disrupt necessary changes to infrastructure, water and emissions, there is going to be a huge cost associated to this in the form of droughts, economic costs and inability to build new houses. Let me put it this way china would have no problem here. The rules take too long to force changes, and landowners are protected too much by the system.
We will not be able to deal with this in time, because there is no political will to make painful decisions that benefit us in the long run. This will be a huge problem in 2050, and it isn't money, engineering or anything else. It is politics, democracy, and the time lag associated with our legal system. Really this problem is no different from the nitrogen oxide (stikstof crisis) problem in the netherlands. We can fix it, technology is there waiting for us to use it. Yet we won't and someday we will pay the price. It is the future rider problem of democracy.
As a Dutchman myself, I never understood why most farmers don't have water silo's or bassins as a buffer.
During the wet season you can simply pump the excess water into the bassins, and at least have a xx weeks of water buffer for a dry period.
Ideally farmers can do this collectively to keep costs down as much as possible. It's not all that difficult to do.
Greenhouse farmers are required by law to collect all the water that comes down on their greenhouse, for good reasons.
I think the reason to that is because a "wet season" isnt typical to the dutch climate at all, it used to rain all year or atleast in somewhat equal amounts every season so then farmers dont need to store any water after all its right there in the drain channels and the rivers right next to them. now with the ground water level lowering that is no longer an option. from what ive heard this all doesnt matter too much for drinking water in most of the netherlands since it gets pumped up from dunes and groundwater, i may be wrong about that though
@@dutchnugget8101 True, drinking water is not yet really a concern. I say 'yet' because more and more people come to The Netherlands, and some water company's did raise some questions if their water capacity is big enough to provide enough water for all the people... something to think about.
But the issue about water shortages for farmers isn't really new, sometimes droughts happen.
I just don't understand why most (agricultural) farmers don't collect (rain) water when there is enough of it.
The costs of doing so aren't all that much, especially when compared to the potential losses of crop.
Thanks for these explanations...I left The Netherlands the year of the great flood at 8 years of age.
I hate the bullshit with lack of space, for me it applies to my love of graveyard which in Netherlands are small, there's not enough of them, the graves are replaced to quickly and instead of packing as many graves as possible into the graveyard they make stupid grave-parks. It's disgusting, if you don't love your dead you don't deserve life.
?
There is plenty of water for every citizen and every business, all year every year. Some people, primarily farmers, just have unrealistic expectations. You can't have super fast drainage to operate heavy machinery right after it rains AND have water through a month long dry spell in the peak of summer. Either we retain the water or we drain it.
I've seen people defending the farmers position saying that its their right and saying Netherlands wanting to reduce farmland was an attempt to make everybody starve and eat bugs
Seriusly, some people just can not accept that this isn't a pipe dream. That you can't have everything
If one farmer qas using that logic, no problem. But ALL of them want to keep spaming fertelizers (wich makes water retension by soil and absorption by plants harder) and want to keep using non existent water
The dutch NEED more swamps
@@joaquimbarbosa896 Yes, a lot of people haven't the slightest idea what the actual policy proposals entail. They're not even currently planning to reduce that type of farming (in fields) but only to reduce the number of cattle, pigs and poultry in order to reduce nitrogen deposition. Given that pastures take up about 50% of our nation's land area (not even exaggerating), this should free up some space for things like moors and wetlands to help with water retention as well, but the main focus of the policy is to reduce nitrogen deposition.
@@Welgeldiguniekalias And that is important for the food security. We need to sacrifice some land to make the rest more productive
@@Welgeldiguniekalias %50 in your tiny country? Why so?
@@platinumsun4632 Because pretty much all of the land is arable. Areas too steep to farm on are limited to a few moraines, there is soil and fresh water literally everywhere, so every square inch of land that is not built up is either a field or a pasture.
It seems that water holding and capturing solutions would be what when there is excessive rain in the Autumn and Winter. This then can be used as drinking water or to put back into the soil during spring and summer.
Also, bring back some marshlands would be helpful too.
Well presented and interesting presentation
Besides national, provincial and municipality elections, we also have waterschappen elections. It seems like this is getting more and more important...
Oh, our government is removing 3000 farmers as a solution. But instead of building homes for refugees on farmland polders, we should flood some polders, not out of protest nessecarily, but to create storage for fresh water and leveling up our groundwater. Water shortage is becoming an annual event here.
Well done
Hey dutchies!
You can rebuild based on the old medieval agriculture, where ponds turn into a fields and back periodicaly. This adds large emount of water to the countryside, and acts as a natural fertilizer. Freshwater fish are valuable commodity, and being renewable will make it more than competitive compared to fishing in dying, polluted oceans. There is also a very good ratio between feed used and meat produced for fish, unlike pork and beef. Ponds may be used to raise ducks too.
The most important thing what the netherlands have are the
ASML chips.
The world needs this for all tech innovations.
And it is an Dutch company with the HQ in the netherlands.
@@jackelgitino631You cant really eat those.
We have a goverment who hates the Netherlands so they are destroying it. Thats the reason why we are f'ed
yeah, i'm studying something about this exact concept. in early versions of waterworks the flooding was avoided by simply having your fields on lower ground, and your farm itself on a slightly raised 'island'. when floods happened, your fields would flood, but your house would stay high and dry, and in a short while you were back in business.
Then, peat harvest started. heaps of organics like dead reeds built up in layers in wet, swampy areas. people collected this, dried it and used it as fuel because it burns like a motherfucker.
When you remove the layer though, i'm pretty sure they just ended up with a bunch of waist high water. So they started building dykes to pump it out and then everything changed. why build the little islands when you have the dykes already?
bonus, we have enough water. we just get waaayyy too much of it once in a while.
@@brooxeyyy I meant one or two seasons as a pond, and then 3-5 like a field. Can be used for fish, ducks, rice in water cycle, and as normal field otherwise. Turns 20% of farmlands into water surface.
I'm Dutch. I watched a video two days ago that 'they' are saying England is drying up too.
Don't fall for it. We and England have a lot of rainy days. Too much even
I think maybe people think in terms of short and long term which don’t really reflect reality. There are a lot of cycles in nature that last long enough to make us think something is normal when it really isn’t. So the Dutch may have built what they thought were permanent solutions, that now appear not to have been.
Is this related to the dutch farmers protests ?
In small parts yes. The farmers have to adapt to a LOT of changes. In part is sort of their own fault, because they are important they have some power in/over the government and thus they pushed the government to not force certain changes that were needed 10 maybe 20 or 30 years ago on the farmers.
Restore the Eurasian Beaver!
Every new house that been build in Belguim needs a water pit/put to catch rainwater.
Not cheap but it solves a big peoblem.
Great video, this explains part of the problem with farmers. Thank you for such informative content.
1: I paid youtube for disable unwanted ads
2:you are wrong;We can regulate how much water stays(except for long periods of drought)
The system we have that make sure we have not to much water, is the same system that we can use to keep water in.
Shows Flevoland in 1500 kekw
ohh, wow a Fairphone user ! I almost never see one. I'm also a Fariphone user of course. 🙂
Farmers can move to better land.
Like Canada.
Ground waterlevels keep sinking because of the German lignite mines just across the borders.
Soon it can shut down and be used for water storage
I already know that using certain vegetation helps to absorp the water and hold it for the droughts. They already are doing this in deserts near water and land that have become desert and need water during droughts. Desalination is expensive and energy intensive....not a good solution. I think they will either redesign the dykes and/or the retention of water via new materials to keep the water (e.g. drinking water under compression in underground tanks or resevoires and/or change the need by developing more efficient crop. And the meat industry eventually will have to change. If we can grow meat in a factory that is equally good. The amount of livestock=>plants needed=>water needed will go down drastically.
Buddy, I dont think you noticed that the last gigantic almost unheard of world wide news dry period that dried up many rivers around the world like in China, Croatia, Netherlands and Japan completely dried up tiny rivers and lakes in the Netherlands, We are not losing water overtime, We just lost a huge amount at once and that is why you are seeing the huge dip of water in the Netherlands according to graphs.
We are also losing water over time, for a long time already. Salinization has been ongoing for much of agricultural lands in Friesland and more coastal regions also the compacting of ground in agricultural lands makes for less rainwater going through to the groundwater and draining into the rivers instead both problems that have been noted since the 70s and 80s and haven't had a good response.
Amazing video
but wrong.....
in portugal we are building water dessalinization plants... a few years ago there was a city of 100 000 people that got with no water and it was supplied by tank-trucks
I think this is an interesting topic and you presented it well, but the title is a bit unnecessarily dramatic.
It's really simple, we are pumping too much ground water out to make the farmers happy, so they won't sink in the soil when working the land with their heavy machines.
Resulting in dry hard soil that is incapable of absorbing the water that rains on our rainy country.
We have plenty water but it's managed wrong. 🤷🏼♂️
If this happened 50 years ago, I would have had no doubt the Dutch could fix it in a good manner. Nowadays I highly doubt it, as a Dutch person myself.
We have lost our engineering spirit, we have insane green lobbies that fight common sense every step of the way. We don't know what good economics are if it would bite us in the dick. We actively hate and dismante our culture and love to improve every country but our own.
Don't get me wrong, we will try and spend about 15 times more then estimated. It will result in a slightly better situation at immense costs to everyone and everything. When it is done we all laugh at how big a failure this was. Enter the commissions created to determine where it went wrong and after 2 years we get to hear in details how we messed-up.
Next project is rinse and repeat.
You lost me at "We have lost our engineering spirit". What a load of bollocks.
3:10
Don't you just hate it when more rain falls in the Ottoman Winter?
Yes it is so annoying. But I think that if we work together with the PVV we might be able to circumvent the problem. They have spent years preparing to kick out the ottoman winters and make way for the dutch winters.
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