THE Dutch government today declared a state of water scarcity due to the unusually dry summer and while no rain is forecast for the next two weeks.
Severe heat waves swept across large parts of Europe and the United States last month, prompting calls for more to tackle warming, which scientists say is making hot spells more frequent and deadly.
With two-thirds of the Netherlands’ population living below sea level, droughts can become an acute problem in the country, flooding rivers and blocking waterways.
A further problem arises from the ‘drying’ of dams – many require the weight of the water itself to remain strong.
“We have seen increasingly drier weather in the Netherlands for several weeks now due to evaporation in our country and very low river flows from abroad,” said Michelle Blom of the country’s Public Works and Water Management agency, which has been set to oversee a special drought task force.
For now, barges on the lower Rhine — a major route for transporting coal from inland Rotterdam to German steel mills and power plants — are operating at less than half their capacity.
The Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport said that as of yesterday, Tuesday, the flow of water in the Rhine was 850 cubic meters per second at Lobit, the eastern town where it enters the Netherlands, “extremely low for this time of year”.
The level is better in the Mosas, which flows from France to Holland.
Iselmeer, a large man-made lake in the north of the country formed by the North Sea in the 20th century, is quite full and can supply water to the province of Groningen.
However, groundwater levels are declining and “are very low in some areas in the south,” the ministry said, causing large amounts of algae to appear and fish to die.
Drinking water is not affected.
Regional water directorates are urging citizens to conserve water, with the southern provinces of Zealand and Limburg asking citizens not to use surface water for irrigation – a measure that affects farmers.
Source: News Beast
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