High water
and flooding are high on the political agenda after the recent floods in summer
2021 and, very recently, winter 2023/2024. However, climate change does not
just cause an excess of water, but also more and more frequently shortages of water.
Drought has been set on the political agenda by now, but its approach is still
in its infancy.
In project ‘DIWA’
a cross-border drought approach will be developed and implemented. This
makes DIWA a unique project.
Drought as
we have experienced it in the past 5 years is a new phenomenon for our region. The
approach of drought requires cooperation on the scale of
(cross-border) basin- and water storage areas, in which groundwater plays an
important role. Because of its complexity drought requires a sector-transcending approach. However, connections between sectors, areas,
managers, and financing options lack at this moment.
DIWA will
change this through these actions:
– Optimalization of the governance for organizing combating drought more effectively.
– Expansion and automatization of discharge- and groundwater measurements. Through this we improve our prediction toolbox and we take a first step towards sustainable groundwater management.
– Development of scenarios and (communication) strategies, through which we map in an area-encompassing manner drought risks and effectivity of measures (objective: the right measures in the right place).
– Exploration and application of anti-drought-measures in practice (area pilots).
– Synthesis of all results and experiences (lessons learned) in a digital guideline for water- and land managers in other (border) regions, to allow them to handle drought in the future better as well.
Through this DIWA provides an important contribution to a cooperating border region on the
theme of drought!
