The water was so low that insects and fish threatened to die. Dragonflies, damselflies and the larvae of the brook lamprey, a rare fish. By pumping water from one place to another, the De Dommel water board tries to save these animals.
With the groundwater pump of a farmer from Lage Mierde, the water is pumped into a ditch. From that ditch it flows to De Reusel. This is possible, because the farmer currently has no crops that need to be watered.
“We can supply about five kilometers of stream with water with this pump,” says ecologist Mark Scheepens of the De Dommel Water Board. “The pump will remain on until it starts to rain enough. This way we can save the lives of all kinds of insects and fish. They cannot just fly to another stream or swim. But it is necessary that they remain alive. can lay eggs, there will be less hatching in the autumn, for example, and then the birds and bats will have less to eat.”
The insects thrive in the layer of groundwater that is there after a day of pumping. “The water is of excellent quality. In Brabant many streams are fed by groundwater, so a combination of groundwater and rainwater,” says Scheepens. “The critical species that cannot withstand drought have been greatly helped by this.”
In 2018, the water board pumped groundwater in this way for the first time. It was then an emergency measure. Because the evaluation showed that it worked well, it was decided to use the method more often when rare insect species are endangered.
In the area of the De Dommel water board, in addition to De Reusel, five more streams are eligible for a layer of survival water: the Tongelreep (Leenderheide), the Beerze (Landgoed Baest and Kampina), the Keersop (Bergeijk) and the Beekloop.
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