Netherlands' Limburg faces record drought, water authority issues highest 'Code Red' warning

Heatstroke

Column by Tobias Müller

Never before has it been so dry so early in summer in the province of Limburg. Water access is now being restricted regionally, but no improvement is in sight.

A drone image shows the low water level of the river Het Meertje in Nijmegen, Netherlands. Photo: Bart Biesemans/reuters

Ochre land. That is how Limburg presents itself from the train window. Dry yellow in all shades, the fields harvested. One inevitably thinks of the words of Saskia Borgers, dike warden in the southeastern province of the Netherlands, which lies between North Rhine-Westphalia and Belgium. "Every drop counts," she recently told regional broadcaster L1. Shortly before, her water authority had declared "Code red," the highest warning level. "A critical situation with severe water shortage," it said.

In the entire Netherlands, water scarcity has been officially declared since mid-July. It was announced by the national water authority Rijkswaterstaat, with countermeasures at the regional level following immediately. In Limburg, since the beginning of July, no water may be taken from rivers to water gardens or sports fields. Additionally, a ban on extracting water from surface waters is now in effect. Exceptions include:

• Extinguishing fires
• Irrigating fruit trees
• Livestock drinking from watercourses

Heatstroke

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The herd of cows standing above the Vlootbeek in the parched grass would probably like to do that. But nothing is left of the stream, which rises in Heinsberg, Germany, about 20 kilometers away. From a wooden bridge in the fields, the view falls on the houses of Linne, a village near Roermond. Between coarse stones lies earth, here and there still damp. On the other side, the bone-dry riverbed meanders, filled with small pebbles, through the fields toward the nearby Meuse.

Habit and Alarm

It is early evening. A heavy silence lies over the landscape. After a week that was cooler and overcast, you can feel the air charging up with warmth again. Peter Janssen, lifeguard at the nearby outdoor pool Weerderhof, is just closing the gate. "I've lived here for almost ten years. In that time, the stream has dried up three or four times," he reports. He doesn't think too much about it. "I've gotten used to it." That it is getting drier in this country, which is known among foreign visitors for its abundance of water, is clear to the lifeguard.

A young mother, out walking with her dog and two small children in the nearby nature area, is worried. "You do get a shock at how far it goes. And then I wonder how dry it will get in the Netherlands."

Unprecedented Drought

Saskia Borgers, the dike warden, doesn't have an answer to that either. What she does know: "We are dealing with extreme drought here, like we have never experienced before." Moreover, this condition occurred particularly early in the summer. Borgers is on the move a lot these days. Recently, she accompanied her authority's inspector on a tour through the province to check whether pumps for groundwater and surface water are properly registered.

Now she is on her way to the provincial capital, Maastricht. On the phone, she outlines the particular problem in Limburg: relatively high temperatures due to the continental climate, sandy and loess soils that barely retain water, too little water coming from Belgium and Germany via the Meuse. "Added to that is our water system in d..."