The growing season is still young, but where is the rain?

It’s dry again. After three dry summers in 2018, 2019 and 2020, it finally rained heavily last year. Farmland crops were able to grow vigorously again last summer and gardens could be kept wet again – if needed at all – without the shame of watering. And perhaps even more importantly: due to abundant rainfall, the level of the groundwater, which had fallen to dubious levels, was also restored. So that the new growing season was not already lagging behind at the start.

Everything is different this spring. After a very wet month of February, it hardly rained in March and April. March in particular was extremely dry and sunny, and farmers in Zeeland, Brabant and Limburg are already complaining that their harvests are in danger of failing, because it is precisely now that the crops should germinate.

Forbidden to water

There is a lot of spraying in large parts of the country. The first water boards have already issued bans; Since April, in most of Brabant it was no longer allowed to irrigate the land with groundwater, and since this week water is no longer allowed to be drawn from waterways, ditches and streams in parts of West Brabant.

The numbers speak volumes; the so-called precipitation deficit, the difference between evaporation and precipitation, is almost 70 millimeters, which is about the same as in 1976, the driest year ever recorded. And there will probably be no significant rain in the next two weeks, experts from the KNMI say.

So there is every reason for concern, even though the growing season is still young. The year 2011 also seemed to be well on its way to become the driest summer ever, when it started to rain all summer from June and the drought was dispelled. And another consolation: for the time being there is still enough water flowing into the country from the large rivers Rhine and Maas.

Also read: Is the Netherlands over the drought crisis now?

National rain barrel

What you can do against the drought depends on where you live. The effects of the drought generally first manifest themselves in higher parts of the Netherlands, especially the east and south.

In the west of the country it is relatively easy to bring in water from elsewhere in times of drought. For example, Rijkswaterstaat has been raising the level of the IJsselmeer, which is also known as the national rain barrel, in the summer months if necessary. As a result, more fresh water is available than in the winter months.

But on higher sandy soils in the south and east of the country, the water flows away easily and is difficult to pump back, partly due to the difference in height. Here too, however, as much water as possible is brought in from elsewhere. For example, an extra inlet was opened this week at Moerdijk, with which extra water from the Hollandsch Diep can be sent to rivers and ditches.

However, this is not sufficient for large parts of farmland and nature elsewhere. And so the water boards there have been busy for several years now to get farmers, citizens and outsiders not only to be economical with water, but above all to use as much as possible the water that on average still falls in large quantities in the Netherlands. save for drier periods like the current one.

Do not tile

Farmers and other owners of large areas in particular should not want to discharge excess water to the sea too quickly in winter, something the Netherlands has become so good at in recent decades, but want to retain it. By allowing the water to settle quietly into the ground and not to let it flow into the ditches. By closing weirs. And by not tiling gardens and placing many rain barrels. Of course you also occasionally have to take into account the chance that with a lot of rain there may suddenly be too much water again.

Balancing between wet and dry times, that’s the issue, and according to the water boards how you get the Dutch to do this is primarily a matter of awareness: people must realize that, preferably without it being imposed on them by a government, they don’t have access to water. should take for granted.