Water boards in Drenthe have been tinkering with the Hunze for about thirty years. The river in the north of Drenthe must start to meander in the old-fashioned way again, as it did for centuries. With the increasing number of warm and especially dry days, this is more important than ever.
The contrast is great in the two parts of the Hunze along the Noordveense dike. Just outside Gieterveen, the Hunze en Aa’s water board started relocating the river ten years ago. And the differences between the old canal and the ‘new’ river are now clearly visible.
“Look at it, it’s so clear here you can see the bottom.” Dike Count Geert-Jan ten Brink peers down contentedly from a bridge. Bright green water plants wave in the rippling water. A blue dragonfly zooms across the surface, a frog jumps through the grass on the shore.
The water board has constructed a new weir, with boulders instead of metal. Better for the fish, which have returned to this part of the river. “It is sometimes teeming with orfes here, which come to spawn. You didn’t have that here years ago,” says Ten Brink.
Less than a hundred meters away you can view the old situation up close. There, almost hidden in the reeds, is the old weir. A cumbersome iron structure, with which the water board used to manage the water level in the Oostermoerse Vaart. Fish just couldn’t get past it.
For a while the Hunze was not a real river, but a straight canal. The winding Hunze was canalized in the mid-20th century. Farmers from the surrounding fields could thus drain excess water much faster. Good for agriculture, but less good for nature.
View the difference between the Oostermoerse Vaart and the Hunze here