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Changed Perspective in Land
and Water Management
Roel Luis, Marije
Louwsma, Roelof Keppel, Rik Wouters
"It all started with dry feet. We have a long
tradition in the Netherlands in our fight against
water. Our main purpose for a long time was to make
sure that our dikes and waterworks were strong and
high enough to hold the water. What we have created
in the past did a tremendous job. We still have dry
feet.... But nowadays we take a broader view in
water and land management. Some of our waterworks
have a negative effect on nature. Another example is
lowering groundwater tables which is good for
farming but induces soil subsidence, so that we are
ending up ever lower under sea level. More and more
we want to combine several wishes in the management
of water and land.
Also climate change has a great impact on how
we have to deal with the various functions of land
and water now and in the future. Sea levels are
rising, we have more extreme rainfall, drought and
higher temperatures. This changes our view and use
of land and water.
To combine all partly conflicting requirements
for our environment is complex. Besides the many
requirements we also have to deal with many laws,
bylaw, procedures, and regulations for our land and
water management."
Introduction
Situated in the delta of the rivers Meuse and
Rhine, the Netherlands have a long tradition in land
and water management. The fertile soils along the
rivers and coast were quickly occupied for food
production, the waterbodies were used for
transportation of people and goods, and along this
transportation network settlements emerged. However,
the proximity to waterbodies also meant the risk of
flooding. Since the very first beginning, the main
aim was to reduce the risk of flooding by embanking
the rivers. Dams and locks were constructed as well
to keep water levels high enough for – cross border
– traffic on the rivers further inland. Along with
these measures, the natural course of the rivers and
their meandering nature were constrained into a
static riverbed. Since in 1995 and 1996 extremely
high discharge levels in the main river systems
almost led to the breakthrough of dykes, which would
cause large areas to be flooded, the perspective on
water management changed. Instead of heightening
dykes over and over again, the new perspective
introduced the idea to give more space to the river.
By widening the riverbed and reintroducing natural
dynamics within this broader river system, the risk
of flooding was reduced while meanwhile the
environmental value increased. A special planning
programme – called ‘Room for the river’ - with 30
different projects was established to materialize
this idea (see Figure 1). The iconic ‘spatial
plan Stork’ (H+N+S, 1986) introduced this new
perspective for the flood plains along the river
Waal.
Figure 1 – Measures to enlarge the course of the
river (source: Rijkswaterstaat)
A similar changing perspective can be seen
regarding water management in rural areas.
Initially, in favour of agriculture drainage systems
were constructed and ground water tables were kept
low in wetter areas. Such interventions extended the
period within which the land is workable with
machines or accessible for cattle. However, nowadays
the drawback of this water management strategy
becomes more and more visible. Permanent lowering
ground water tables, led to loss of biodiversity,
soil degradation and subsidence in peatland areas.
Add up to this, longer spells of drought in
combination with torrential rains especially in
summer, and the need to re-think the strategy in
rural areas for water management becomes clear.
Nowadays a more comprehensive view on water
management is taken, to accommodate all land use
types in rural areas. Groundwater table should suit
both agriculture and nature conservation areas. In
addition to general measures to keep water for a
longer period in the area such as re-meandering of
local streams, natural banks or temporary ponds,
various local measures are taken to manage water at
the micro level such as local dams operated by the
landowner itself. At the same time we constructed
parallel waterstreams, for a higher capacity of the
rivers when discharge is high. Guiding
principle is to take a coherent set of measures at
watershed level.
Hosted in the Netherlands, the FIG Working Week
was supposed to give you a good overview of land and
water management practice in this country. In
addition to the technical program, several social
activities, social and technical tours were
scheduled to highlight Dutch experiences. Now you
must miss all this, as an alternative, we will focus
in this article on Dutch practice in land and water
management. More content regarding international
contributions to spatial planning, including land
and water management, can be found in the
commission 8 article.
Geo-information and the Environment and Planning Act
Over time, the legislative framework for environment
and spatial planning turned into a complex system of
over 40 laws, 120 general administrative orders and
hundreds of regulations. To deal with this overload
of regulations cost a lot of effort and is time
consuming.
To simplify and align all legislation in the domain,
the Environment and Planning Act (Omgevingswet) will
merge existing laws into one single Act. The new
Act, which should become effective as of 2021, aims
to increase efficiency for involved agencies and
transparency for all stakeholders. Key to the
latter, is the introduction of a coherent digital
system for administrative and geographical
information. From a planners’ perspective two
principles are leading: (1) single data collection,
multiple use, and (2) all stakeholders must have
access to this information so that parties are
equally informed.
Figure 2. Digital system Environment and
Planning Act
The ‘Omgevingswet’ as we call this in the
Netherlands combines legal rules, business rules and
geometry in a system of software components and
services. These concepts are used to provide end
users – citizens and companies – answers to the
question if they need a permit from the government
for their activities with impact on the environment
(e.g. new infrastructure, expand buildings, draining
waste water). Specifically, this means that the
users (government, citizen and company) through a
one-stop permit application, can request and see
which rules and policies apply to a location. So,
with one click on the map one can see whether
intended activities are allowed.
Transparency, coherence and rapid decision-making
are important concepts in the Environment and
Planning Act. The digital aspects are important
preconditions for the proper functioning of this.
The Environment and Planning Act contains the
obligation that all decisions for the physical
living environment are digitally available and
linked to so-called location data. Standardization
provides better information, but the
(administrative) work processes are sometimes still
from the old days and do not yet use or register
geographical –coordinates: A challenge for many
public organizations.
The Environment and Planning Act will need facts to
come to a decision. To ask questions and gather
answers the system needs input (facts) such as a
location with the intended activities defined by the
Environment and Planning Act. The location can
either be an address, a point on a map or even a
polygon. The ambition is to tailor information as
much as possible by using standard geo-coordinates
and, where possible, to ensure digital communication
with the government. This has an impact on the
geo-information. It must be timely, reliable and
complete. This can give people working on geo
departments a boost to be top-of-mind again in their
organizations.
Necessity of high-quality Geodata
During the last decades the Dutch government and
geo-sector put quite some effort in the availability
of geodata.
During the ongoing demands, particularly for high
quality data, which are essential for making
informed decisions, we introduced a digital
dissemination platform called ‘PDOK’ (Publieke
Dienstverlening Op de Kaart) which refers to Public
Services on Mapping (https://www.pdok.nl/),
which proved to be an enormous support in all our
spatial planning projects. Apart from the fact that
it’s all Open Data (free available information), we
also managed to bring the most valuable datasets
(Basemaps, etc.) easily available and accessible on
this platform. This platform offers a great source
of all kinds of geodata, and is accessible and
available for all kind of business: it’s free of
charge for use in land surveying-companies,
engineering bureaus, rural planning and even for use
at civilian purposes.
Developing, maintenance and improvement of this
collection of geodata is still on-going : nowadays
we have a program (SOR; Coherent Object
Registration), in which the aim is to unify and
standardize all basemaps and key-registrations, so
that the use of this collection can even broaden.
Therefore, all major companies and governmental
organizations provide the DiS Geo-project (work
together in collaboration for geo) with their
knowledge.
Figure 3. DiSGeo
The substantive and technical further development
that requires this, will yield greater social
returns and can be realized more efficiently if this
is done in conjunction. An important development
with which DiS Geo has started is the development of
a coherent object registration. A coherent object
registration is one central organized uniform
registration containing basic information about
objects in physical reality. By this, we mean
visible objects in the terrain, such as buildings,
roads, water, railways and trees, parts of the
terrain, supplemented with some (administrative)
objects such as residences, municipal borders and
public spaces. The basemap registrations are
developed independently of each other, and therefore
do not yet form a coherent entity. This hampers
synergy in control, funding, collection, quality
management, and use, and the associated cost
advantages. Once coherent it will make the use of
the geo component for e.g. the ‘Omgevingswet’
easier.
There has been quite some papers about land and
water management. Unfortunately there is no
opportunity to share this live during our Working
Week in Amsterdam. If you are interested in reading
more about land and water management, we refer to
this website:
https://www.fig.net/fig2020/technical_program.htm
Case ‘Noordwaard’
For centuries the Netherlands has fought against the
water. It was so successful that the Dutch people
did not only protect themselves from the water, but
actually reclaimed considerable areas of excellent
arable land from the 1200 onward. It was the time
that farmers started to build dikes stay save from
sea and river water and constructed mounds (NL:
terpen), save havens for dwellings, farms and
churches. The struggle is ongoing until with the
same vigorousness until recently.
When engineers realized that they were losing grip
on the situation, they changed the strategy some 10
years ago. Main reason: climate change! Dykes were
no longer strong and high enough to protect land
against increasing river discharge as a result of
more (intense) rainfall and higher sea water levels
because of melting ice from the arctic and mountain
glaciers.
Geo-engineers developed a new strategy: Live with
the water instead of fighting against. One of the
flagship projects of the ‘Room for the River’
programme was de “Noordwaard”, referring to a large
polder in the west of the Netherlands. Instead of
higher dykes, dykes were lowered, so that the water
could flow into the polder thus lowering high water
levels in the downstream industrial area of
Rotterdam. Land reallotment, combining with
infrastructural work (parallel stream beds, farms on
earthen mounts, roads free from flooding, etc.). The
land base registers, the cadastral map and detailed
digital terrain model were needed to make sure that
the final result worked according to the
requirements: keeping the farmers save during high
water, while respecting ownership and land use
rights.
Next to improving conditions for cattle raising,
also functions like nature and recreation were
reinforced. Large areas of wetlands were created and
a network of bike lanes were laid out. The
Noordwaard is now a showcase for how the new
integrated land and water strategy can be
implemented.
Figure 4. Water from the Waal is inundating
the Noordwaard via a water inlet system (concrete
structure in the middle).
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