Water management in Flanders: dealing with drought and floods
Water was given the nickname “the blue gold” because of its increasing value and scarcity. How secure is our access to water in the future? Together with environmental historian Tim Soens (Faculty of Arts, Department of History) and biologist Patrick Meire (Faculty of Science, Department of Biology), we explore the consequences of climate change on water management: more frequent and extreme rainfall, longer periods of drought or an unpredictable combination of both? How well prepared is Flanders for what lies ahead? Do our current agricultural practices need to be revised? And will our drinking water supply still be guaranteed in 2050? A look at the past and the future, focusing on the question of how we can protect ourselves against and with water.
In short
- Floods and droughts aren’t new as such, but they are becoming increasingly extreme and will also occur more frequently.
- We must urgently reduce our emissions, radically adapt our landscape to those extremes and free up more room for water by allowing for better filtration, good storage and good drainage.
- The extent to which our society can buffer or avoid major disasters will be an important component of our prosperity.
- When it comes to research into nature-based solutions for water management, we are seriously lagging behind in Flanders, even though these kinds of investments in climate research are as important as those in computer science and biotechnology.
- Water-dependent agriculture based on fossil groundwater that’s almost depleted will cause global tragedies resulting in poverty and migration flows.
More extremes: drought and flooding on the rise
‘The extreme rains and floods in Central Europe in the autumn of 2024 are completely in line with the predictions of the climate change,’ says biologist Patrick Meire to get us underway. ‘We’re heading for bigger extremes: very hot summers alternating with increasingly intense rainfall.
Just to compare, in July of 2021 Belgium experienced one of the biggest floods in the past 100 years. The Vesdre Valley got the worst of this “water bomb”, with 270 litres per square metre coming down in 48 hours. Barely three years later, this repeated itself on a much larger scale in Central Europe with400 litres per square metre that came down in a matter of days.’
‘Floods and drought aren’t new as such’, environmental historian Tims Soens adds, ‘But we do see that they are becoming more extreme and intense.’.
Room for water as the key to water management
Are we prepared to face those extremes? ‘No’, both gentlemen agree wholeheartedly. ‘The huge damage Storm Boris caused in Central Europe is a sign we’re not prepared enough.’
What do we need to improve?
‘First, we have to reduce our emissions,’ says Meire. ‘This would “mitigate” further climate change. Unfortunately, it’s no longer possible to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. In addition to mitigation, we need to adapt ourselves to those extremes. In Flanders, we need to adapt our infrastructure so it can deal with those kinds of extremes – not just the dykes and dams, but the entire landscape.
We need to rethink our entire approach to water management and make room for water again. Initially, water must be able to ‘infiltrate’ well into the soil. Concrete and asphalt aren’t helpful in this regard, but a lot of agricultural land has also been hardened by 'soil compaction’, which results from being driven over by too heavy machinery.
We also need space to “store” water. Swamp areas can temporarily retain excess water, andmeasures such as the planting of hedges can help slow down runoff. Finally, it must be possible to drain the water well. Unfortunately, this has not been taken into account in our spatial planning. We keep building in low-lying valleys and flood-prone areas or use them for intensive agriculture, which causes all kinds of problems.’
Investing in climate literacy
‘Another important measure is “preparedness” in climate adaptation’, according to Meire: ‘Nowadays, we can accurately predict when heavy rainfall is coming. This means you can already take pre-emptive action, such as draining buffer basins to create buffer capacity and evacuating people in time. A waterbomb will cause damage anyway, but what you can do is give your critical infrastructure – including hospitals and power plants – extra protection , so your basic activities can be continued.
There’s no way you can protect everything, but you can try to reduce the damage by adapting your area’s design and improve the preparedness of the population and government.’
'We need to make people aware that they live in areas at risk of flooding. As far as I’m concerned, there should be a few more markers showing how high the water can rise.'
‘We need to strengthen ‘climate literacy’ by sharing experiences from the past,’ Soens thinks. Research he has conducted as an environmental historian has been on such topics as how societies in the past dealt with natural and environmental disasters, how they adapted to the threat of water and how they worked together to set up water management.
‘It’s impossible to compare the intensity and frequency of recent floods with those that took place back then, and the land use is also different. But we can alert people to the fact that they’re living in areas at risk of being flooded. There used to be “flood markers” scattered throughout the landscape to show people how high the water once reached, as a warning. I would like to see more of those markers appearing.’
The illusion of controlling water
The belief that nature can be fully controlled is increasingly challenged by the reality of more extreme weather conditions. ‘We live in an illusion of safety,’ says Soens, ‘and insurances, emergency procedures and disaster funds fuel that idea. We think the government and technology will protect us anytime, anywhere. This idea emerged in the 18th century with the Enlightenment, and reached its peak after the Second World War. The Delta Plan in Zeeland, following the 1953 flood disaster, with its storm surge barriers, was meant to prove that we could control water levels down to the millimetre. But even that turned out to be an illusion.”
“We live in an illusion of safety. We think the government and technology will protect us anytime, anywhere. But even that turned out to be an illusion.”
As a solution Soen point to a number of “amphibious strategies” Past societies developed strategies that could be applied both under dry and wet conditions, one of which was to strongly compartmentalise polder areas. By using a system of compartments with various dams and dykes, people gained time during floods. They also did a lot of “wet agriculture”, which meant fresh water floods weren’t really a problem. On the contrary, these “flood meadows” or “flood plains” had the highest economic value in the 19th century, because they. They were productive flood-prone grasslands and hay meadows that could be deliberately flooded or drained whenever necessary.”
'Floods also had advantages in the past,' says Meire. 'The silt that was deposited provided natural fertilization. You cannot compare that with the productivity of our modern intensive agriculture with artificial fertilizers, but it does seem to me that a solution would be to start farming like that again in river valleys. This would allow us to combine agriculture and water management to perfection. That’s an important lesson we can learn from the past. Agriculture used to be more closely adapted to weather conditions and water availability than it is today. I think we need to take a humbler attitude towards nature once again.’
Inequality increases the impact of climate disasters
Not all past societies managed water sustainably,’ Soens says to provide a bit of nuance. ‘The sustainability stemmed mostly from necessity. If you depend on a particular environment to survive, you won’t deplete it. Unfortunately, as our society is becoming increasingly mobile, this familiarity with the local environment is diminishing, and this is a problem that’s difficult to solve. People often end up in ecological environments they do not know well and for which they are unprepared.'
'In New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina hit the poorest households harder, including many recent immigrants, because those groups lived in flood-prone parts of the city and were evacuated less quickly. Poverty makes people extra vulnerable for climate disasters. This used to be the case, and still is. Poorer people are more likely to live in high-risk areas.'
'Wealthier people, on the other hand, know they are protected, and that’s precisely why there’s often a lack of support for societal change, because “they” are living in a stable house, so “other people will be affected by the storm”. It’s only because of the more extreme natural disasters of recent years that the feeling that you can protect yourself as an individual is disappearing.’
Rethinking prosperity in times of climate change
To say we are facing big challenges is an understatement. ‘This is not “the new normal”, things will get even more extreme,’ says Meire. ‘My grandchildren will experience much more climate disasters than I will. I think that’s quite scary for future generations.’
According to Soens, we need to rethink our concept of “prosperity”. ‘Until now, we measured that in income, assets and economic growth. The prosperity of the future will be determined by how we, as a society, can buffer or avoid major disasters such as floods and droughts. As an historian, I see that “trade off” between accumulating wealth or creating a kind of basic safety for everyone that will make sure the shocks are absorbed better. This means you will have to invest part of your economic prosperity to protect everyone from disasters.’
‘This will cost a lot of money, but the cost of “no action” is much bigger,’ Meire argues. ‘Investing in water is not an expense but a form of insurance that helps limit potential damage. Yet politicians often see it differently today. We’re 100% sure that there will be more floods in the future. So why can’t we all agree to invest in sustainable water management? When it comes to research into nature-based solutions for water management, we are seriously lagging behind in Flanders. Greater investment in climate research and innovative management approaches is essential if we want to protect Flanders more effectively against droughts and floods. These investments are as important as those in computer science and biotechnology.’
'The costs of ‘doing nothing’ are much higher. Investing in water is not an expense, but a form of insurance that helps limit potential damage.'
Water availability in Flanders and worldwide
"Our” water supply is fine for the time being. ‘When it comes to water use, we’re not doing too badly in Flanders. In addition, our industries are increasingly focussing on water reuse and recycling,’ Meire states.
‘In a historical sense, there’s an interesting cycle at work,’ says Soens. ‘In the past there were different types of water: rainwater, groundwater, open water in the city and often also some kind of high-quality drinking water that was supplied via pipelines or by boat. Each type of water had its own target group and purpose. Roughly between 1890 and 1990, we evolved to one type of tap water for everything. Today, we are once again using diverse types of water for different purposes: drinking water for human consumption, rainwater for flushing toilets or washing clothes, groundwater for agricultural irrigation, and greywater in industry.'
‘But on a global scale, water is becoming scarce,’ says Meire. ‘In regions where agriculture depends on fossil groundwater reserves that are nearly depleted, there is a real risk of water crisis, with poverty and migration flows as potential consequences.’