New water sources in North Holland needed due to drought and population growth

Dry summers, salinization, housing and companies that use more and more water threaten access to clean and high-quality drinking water. If the Netherlands does not take measures quickly, drinking water will not be able to flow from the tap everywhere in 2030. The RIVM warns against this today a new report.

Although North Holland – compared to other provinces – has enough reserves, the drinking water company PWN is already busy with the future behind the scenes.

Drinking water from the tap seems obvious, but according to Koen Zuurbier it is not. He is Strategic Advisor Drinking Water at PWN. It requires awareness, action and solutions to turn the tide. “Due to population growth and the growth of the economy in our region, more and more drinking water is being demanded,” he says. “The water in the IJsselmeer is also becoming salinized due to climate change and we are finding more and more substances such as medicine residues in the surface water that do not belong there.”

New water sources

The drinking water company has been looking for new water sources since 2018, including in Overveen, ‘t Gooi and the Haarlemmermeer. There is a whole process that precedes that. “We first mapped out several locations. Where can we produce sufficient drinking water, even when it is dry? Does it fit into the environment and is it sustainable? In the end, three remained. Water extraction and nature can reinforce each other. Next summer we will bring the results together, after which one or two locations remain for the short term. We don’t need all three immediately.”

It should be operational in 2035. “Nothing will happen in the short term. We still have a lot to figure out.”

Text continues.

North Hollanders can also contribute. Zuurbier: “We have to use less water across the board. We use an average of about 120 liters of water per day. If we can reduce that by, for example, 5 liters, that already contributes a lot. This can be done, for example, by taking shorter showers, watering the garden or visiting a car wash less often. We also saw it when the price of gas rose: people became more economical.”

He also calls for old medicines to no longer be flushed down the toilet, but to be neatly taken to the pharmacy. “We hear a lot about pollution from agriculture or industry, but people at home can also contribute to clean water. The sewage water also eventually ends up in the environment and we ultimately have to turn it into clean and high-quality drinking water.”

Three new reservoirs

In addition to finding new water sources, the drinking water company would also like three construct new reservoirs for the coastline of Andijk, a so-called ‘climate buffer’ that should serve as a reservoir during thirsty summers. Because the drinking water company now stores the water in two reservoirs, a supply good for 3 to 4 days.

“And that is not enough, so it is not actually a stock,” Myrthe Fonck, Strategic Advisor Nature at PWN, previously told NH Nieuws. And that must change in the future. “We want rexcavate three new basins around the existing reservoirs, which are 20 meters deep are. A supply of about two months.”