'Without climate-resilient water system, drought costs society dearly'

The drought season started early this year. February saw very little precipitation, March was bone dry, and April doesn't seem to be getting any better. Those long periods of drought will not go away - quite the opposite. Pressure on groundwater is increasing and periods of little or no precipitation are getting longer. We must respond to this with a climate-proof water system.

Due to climate change, the weather is becoming more extreme. Winters will see a lot of precipitation in a short period of time, while summers will become drier. This drought has major consequences. Salinization on the coast can mean that farming will no longer be possible in large areas. Low groundwater levels cause foundation problems, which can damage hundreds of thousands of Dutch homes. And in peatlands additional subsidence is taking place due to so-called peat oxidation, which also causes more CO₂ emissions.

All these developments are costing society a lot of money, and this will increase in the future. It is already the case that municipalities have to refurbish roads and sewers more often, due in part to subsidence of the ground.

Rainwater infiltration

Much research is being done on solutions to these problems. For example, at The Green Village's Heat Square at the TU Delft campus, where researchers are testing various innovations for their climate-adaptive effect on a local scale. One such solution is the collection of rainwater during periods of heavy precipitation, in order to be able to efficiently infiltrate it into the ground after treatment when necessary. The techniques for this already exist, it is now a matter of putting them into practice.

This solution can be applied on a large or small scale: for a neighborhood, street or a single new building. We are also using these techniques at Fugro's headquarters in Nootdorp. We collect roof water and purify it to both use it for plumbing and plants and infiltrate it into the soil. Ideally, this way of working will become the standard in new construction and area developments.