They’re ‘World Champions’ of Banishing Water. Now, the Dutch Need to Keep It

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https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/10/climate/netherlands-drought-climate-change.html

By Raymond Zhong, The New York Times. 

Excerpt: ENSCHEDE, the Netherlands — The story of the Netherlands’ centuries of struggle against water is written all over its boggy, low-lying landscape. Windmills pumped water out of sodden farmland and canals whisked it away. Dikes stopped more from flooding in. Now, climate change is drying out great stretches of Europe, and, once again, the Dutch are hoping to engineer their way to safety — only this time, by figuring out how to hold onto more water instead of flushing it out. From California and Texas to India and China, many parts of the world are grappling with widening swings between very wet conditions and very dry ones. The extra heat near the earth’s surface from global warming is, in many regions, increasing the chances of both punishing droughts and violent rainstorms. Societies like the Netherlands must now plan for both extremes, even though the best preparations for one can be at odds with the best preparations for the other. “We are world champions in making land dry,” said Peter van Dijk, a blueberry grower based in the country’s south. “Now we are trying to turn that system around, because we overshot.” ... To help more water stay put, kept in reserve for droughts, officials, farmers and scientists across the Netherlands are remaking the land from the bottom up. City planners in Enschede (pronounced EN-skeh-day) are carving gentle undulations into grassy areas to catch rainwater that would otherwise be flushed away in the sewers. They are tearing out concrete tiles and other paved surfaces to expose more permeable earth, a concept that has morphed into a yearly tile-ripping competition between Dutch cities. The water board is adding bends to brooks and streams so water doesn’t run off as quickly.…

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