Think our country is really bad at holding on to our water. We don’t have a lot of water reserves and most of our rain water goes into the drainage system straight to sea, so when a drought hits, we have to be really reserved with out water spending. Plus our high density population and lots of farming doesn’t make it better.
Not sure why we’d be worse than the Netherlands since they should have these problems too but these are the reasons why waterstress is a problem in Belgium. Perhaps the Netherlands does better because they have the Rhine river, or better urban planning that results in them being able to hold on to their water better?
We have a LOT of buildings and roads, we’re one of the most concentrated countries in the world, especially if you look at just Flanders. It’s why the Betonstop is such a big deal, we have to stop turning every little piece of land we can find into concrete buildings that stop water from infiltrating into the ground.
Lack of major rivers, combined with very densely populated country and of course the peak of Belgian urban planning: our beautiful lintbebouwing which causes roads to be any- and everywhere.
All this asphalt everywhere means the average degree of soil sealage (verharding) is quite a bit higher than our neighbours. Soil sealage means that when it rains, it can’t penetrate the soft ground to reach and refill our aquifers, instead it runs off into sewers, rivers and into the ocean.
Not all bad per se though. Water stress here is defined as availibility of natural water resources relative to the demand to water. We’re a very prosperous country and in addition to the many people that live here needing water we have a lot of industry/agriculture that demands water. These economic sources are a large part of the water demand and so the stress. No one is going to be dying of thirst here anytime soon!
The main idea in Belgium with rain water has always been: “how can we get this fastest to the sea?”. This idea is starting to change, but you can’t change all this infrastructure in 1 year. Some has been here for decades, even centuries (e.g. waterways connected to other waterways connected to rivers).
This year is not the best example of this trend, but we have suffered from severe heat and drought for the past few years.
but as the other comments show, there is a lack of water management and high population- but also a LOT of pollution and nitrates from agriculture
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Because we like wasting water 😎
Think our country is really bad at holding on to our water. We don’t have a lot of water reserves and most of our rain water goes into the drainage system straight to sea, so when a drought hits, we have to be really reserved with out water spending. Plus our high density population and lots of farming doesn’t make it better.
Not sure why we’d be worse than the Netherlands since they should have these problems too but these are the reasons why waterstress is a problem in Belgium. Perhaps the Netherlands does better because they have the Rhine river, or better urban planning that results in them being able to hold on to their water better?
We have a LOT of buildings and roads, we’re one of the most concentrated countries in the world, especially if you look at just Flanders. It’s why the Betonstop is such a big deal, we have to stop turning every little piece of land we can find into concrete buildings that stop water from infiltrating into the ground.
Lack of major rivers, combined with very densely populated country and of course the peak of Belgian urban planning: our beautiful lintbebouwing which causes roads to be any- and everywhere.
All this asphalt everywhere means the average degree of soil sealage (verharding) is quite a bit higher than our neighbours. Soil sealage means that when it rains, it can’t penetrate the soft ground to reach and refill our aquifers, instead it runs off into sewers, rivers and into the ocean.
Not all bad per se though. Water stress here is defined as availibility of natural water resources relative to the demand to water. We’re a very prosperous country and in addition to the many people that live here needing water we have a lot of industry/agriculture that demands water. These economic sources are a large part of the water demand and so the stress. No one is going to be dying of thirst here anytime soon!
The main idea in Belgium with rain water has always been: “how can we get this fastest to the sea?”. This idea is starting to change, but you can’t change all this infrastructure in 1 year. Some has been here for decades, even centuries (e.g. waterways connected to other waterways connected to rivers).
This year is not the best example of this trend, but we have suffered from severe heat and drought for the past few years.
but as the other comments show, there is a lack of water management and high population- but also a LOT of pollution and nitrates from agriculture