risk of serious flooding. Drinking water production is the priority use for this water.
Other goals such as tourism and yachting, agriculture, and nature are acknowledged, but clearly as secondary objectives. Fisheries were hit hard, but recovered by
relocation and more recently by creating fish passages and minimal flow requirements. A new anti-salinity lock should enable yachting while preserving as much
freshwater as possible and keep the ecological quality high. In this way engineering
interventions initiated for flood defence created the need for further interventions to
modify ecological side effects.
The clearest example of climate change impacts increasing the frequency of both
droughts and flooding in Somerset. It is not considered a water-stressed area
because on average there is no problem with the supply and demand balance. There
can however still be scarcity for nature, especially during times of drought. While
droughts in other parts of South England even have been hitting harder, the
Somerset nature areas are particularly vulnerable. After the 2013–2014 floods the
Somerset Levels and Moors Flood Action Plan replaced a number of drought and
flood resilience plans with a combination of measures in which flood protection had
an overriding priority. Apart from improved flood defence measures and dredging
of waterways, also dredging around the Levels and Moors is included in the plan.
The science is inconclusive on whether this is the most appropriate set of
measures, even for flood protection, while it certainly would increase the risks of
drought impacts on nature. A catchment approach that also would balance the needs
of nature and agriculture is an emerging agenda in the region and country but there
is still discussion on the effectiveness of these approaches. Farmers have no
incentives now to accept higher water levels at the expense of the usability of their
meadows to buffer for dryer periods. Some even muddle with the water system for
purposes of irrigation. Another issue is peat extraction for which often old licenses
are still valid. Yet another issue is water extraction rights that are not regarded
flexible enough for future challenges. Nevertheless the growth of larger conservation NGOs have increased the awareness of the importance of the wetlands for
the region.
The Twente region in Vechtstromen is in general not a flood-prone area.
Nevertheless, heavy rains that are more frequently occurring due to climate change
surpass the water drainage capacity in several areas, causing short term flooding
(“water on the streets”) problems and damages like in the summer of 2013. The
main stream in the pilot area is the river Dinkel, a transboundary river that remained
mostly unmodified at the Dutch side, while upstream at the German side all
meanders were removed and the river was “normalized”. This increased the
flooding risk of the Dutch stream valley, including both agricultural fields and many
nature areas. August 2010 was the wettest month in this area in 100 years, causing
the Dinkel to submerge large areas and even parts of the town of Losser. An
interesting background is that the German measures were part of a transboundary
plan, but while insights in water management changed the Dutch decided to stop its
implementation. Nature would have been severely damaged and drought risks
increased by the kind of measures proposed in the 70s and 80s. At other places, also
in Twente, the water authorities had already started to undo precisely these kinds of
236
H. Bressers and U. Stein
Other goals such as tourism and yachting, agriculture, and nature are acknowledged, but clearly as secondary objectives. Fisheries were hit hard, but recovered by
relocation and more recently by creating fish passages and minimal flow requirements. A new anti-salinity lock should enable yachting while preserving as much
freshwater as possible and keep the ecological quality high. In this way engineering
interventions initiated for flood defence created the need for further interventions to
modify ecological side effects.
The clearest example of climate change impacts increasing the frequency of both
droughts and flooding in Somerset. It is not considered a water-stressed area
because on average there is no problem with the supply and demand balance. There
can however still be scarcity for nature, especially during times of drought. While
droughts in other parts of South England even have been hitting harder, the
Somerset nature areas are particularly vulnerable. After the 2013–2014 floods the
Somerset Levels and Moors Flood Action Plan replaced a number of drought and
flood resilience plans with a combination of measures in which flood protection had
an overriding priority. Apart from improved flood defence measures and dredging
of waterways, also dredging around the Levels and Moors is included in the plan.
The science is inconclusive on whether this is the most appropriate set of
measures, even for flood protection, while it certainly would increase the risks of
drought impacts on nature. A catchment approach that also would balance the needs
of nature and agriculture is an emerging agenda in the region and country but there
is still discussion on the effectiveness of these approaches. Farmers have no
incentives now to accept higher water levels at the expense of the usability of their
meadows to buffer for dryer periods. Some even muddle with the water system for
purposes of irrigation. Another issue is peat extraction for which often old licenses
are still valid. Yet another issue is water extraction rights that are not regarded
flexible enough for future challenges. Nevertheless the growth of larger conservation NGOs have increased the awareness of the importance of the wetlands for
the region.
The Twente region in Vechtstromen is in general not a flood-prone area.
Nevertheless, heavy rains that are more frequently occurring due to climate change
surpass the water drainage capacity in several areas, causing short term flooding
(“water on the streets”) problems and damages like in the summer of 2013. The
main stream in the pilot area is the river Dinkel, a transboundary river that remained
mostly unmodified at the Dutch side, while upstream at the German side all
meanders were removed and the river was “normalized”. This increased the
flooding risk of the Dutch stream valley, including both agricultural fields and many
nature areas. August 2010 was the wettest month in this area in 100 years, causing
the Dinkel to submerge large areas and even parts of the town of Losser. An
interesting background is that the German measures were part of a transboundary
plan, but while insights in water management changed the Dutch decided to stop its
implementation. Nature would have been severely damaged and drought risks
increased by the kind of measures proposed in the 70s and 80s. At other places, also
in Twente, the water authorities had already started to undo precisely these kinds of
236
H. Bressers and U. Stein