The Netherlands has a story to tell about its centuries of struggle against water. Water was pumped out of the farmland by windmills. The water was stopped from flooding in.
The Dutch are trying to engineer their way to safety by figuring out how to hold onto more water instead of throwing it away.
Many parts of the world are grappling with swings between very wet and very dry conditions. Global warming is increasing the chances of both punishing droughts and violent rainstorms. The best preparations for one can be at odds with the best preparations for the other.
Peter van Dijk said that he was a world champion in making land dry. We overshot and now we are trying to turn it around.
It's a huge challenge in the Netherlands. The price of heavy water users in the Netherlands has not been raised. There are tighter rules on construction in vulnerable areas. Farmers have staged protests against a plan to cut nitrogen emissions because of curbs on water use.
The Netherlands, one of the world's most densely populated countries, just doesn't have the space for big new basins for water. It is pancake flat and pumps water around takes a lot of energy.
The Netherlands can show the world that it is possible if it girds itself for a dry future. Our game needs to be increased.
This year was Europe's hottest summer on record, and it wreaked havoc on crops and hydropower supplies. In a world without global warming, soil conditions like those in Europe this summer were at least three times as likely as they are now.
Much of the country's fresh water comes from the Rhine River, which has reduced flows due to hot and dry summers. The discharge of the Rhine in August was the lowest it had ever been.
Farmers in Enschede, an inland city of 159,000 people, have to suck water from ponds at night because of a scarcity of water. The local water board started issuing warnings and fines after a lot of such episodes in the last year. Employees were assigned to patrol water sources.
Do you think there is one repeat offenders? A person grows trees.
There are a few farmers that are persistent.
Farmers and scientists in the Netherlands are making land from the bottom up in order to keep more water in reserve.
In Enschede, planners are carving gentle undulations into grassy areas to catch rain that would otherwise end up in the sewer. They are tearing out concrete tiles and other paved surfaces to expose more permeable earth, a concept that has evolved into a yearly tile stripping competition between Dutch cities. The water board is trying to keep the water from running off too fast.
Dutch farmers are trying to remove less water from the ground by making drainage ditches deeper, a reversal from the past when they tried to keep more water out of the ground.
Growers in the Netherlands have relied on the water boards to dry out their fields. Some of them are trying to encourage farmers to conserve water by using drip irrigation instead of spray cannons.
Mr. van Dijk said that changing farmers minds can be difficult. Dutch people don't want to be told what to do.
The Netherlands was able to get rid of excess water thanks to its success in exporting farm products. This year, due to Russia's war in Ukranian, there has been a debate about whether the Netherlands can continue to produce so much food.
The country needs to embrace its natural swampiness according to Jeroen Geurts. He is conducting experiments on marshlands that could be used to grow cattails or pastures for water buffaloes.
The Sisyphean battle against rising seas is being hampered by heat and dry weather. Water supplies for homes and farms are at risk as less fresh water flows down the Rhine and other rivers. The water quality in the rivers is affected by the heat waves.
Gertjan Zwolsman is a policy adviser and researcher at Dunea, a drinking-water company that supplies 1.3 million people around The Hague. The process is a lot of work. Franca Kramer is a researcher at Dunea.
Dr. Zwolsman said there was nothing natural about the Netherland.
The country has not involved anything as grand as its flood-control projects. Even if nations deliver on their climate pledges, the planet is projected to be 3.6 degrees hotter than it was before the Industrial Revolution.
Europe's largest port is under scrutiny. Cargo ships can move in and out of the city with the open channel. The Dutch government has to send huge amounts of fresh water down the rivers to push the water back into the ocean.
"As sea levels rise, you're going to need more and more water to keep that sea out." He said that at some point the government might want to close off the Port of Rotterdam with locks like it did with the Port of Amsterdam. Water would be freed up for other purposes. The Dutch government restricted the number of times the locks near Amsterdam could be opened during the summer because of the problem.
There is a proposal to build a huge new sea dike that would wall off the Dutch coast. It wouldn't cost a lot. The Dutch water ministry advises to keep adapting and re-adapting water infrastructure for tougher conditions.
He said to leave the soggy shoulder of Europe that the Dutch have turned into one of the world's most prosperous societies. That isn't our plan.
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