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| The Dutch Ambassador to Cyprus, Wouter Plomp and the Senior Water Management Advisor at the Regional Public Water Authority Amstel, Gooi and Vecht (AGV), Maartje Faasse. |
Two Dutch experts explain how capturing rain and reusing treated water could help the island weather droughts and reduce flood risk.
Growing pressure on Cyprus’ water supplies is drawing attention to how the Netherlands manages its water. Shortages and the effects of climate change have made the search for new approaches more urgent. At the Circular Water Economy conference, held in Nicosia on Oct. 29 and 30, the Dutch Embassy sought to deepen cooperation with Cypriot authorities and share Dutch expertise.
In the interview that follows, Maartje Faasse, a senior water management adviser at the Amstel, Gooi and Vecht regional water authority, and Wouter Plomp, the Dutch ambassador to Cyprus, discuss which Dutch practices could work on the island, what technology can offer and how to manage water in a changing climate.
Q: The Netherlands is known for keeping excess water at bay, while Cyprus faces the opposite problem. In recent years, you’ve dealt with both severe drought and heavy rainfall. What’s the main lesson for Cyprus as it faces its worst water shortage in years?
Ambassador Wouter Plomp: I think it’s how well the different organizations and stakeholders in the Netherlands work together. Our 19 local water boards work with Rijkswaterstaat, the agency that manages the national water system, as well as with water utilities and provincial authorities to deal with drought or water shortages in summer and autumn.
Maartje Faasse: We work across several regions that deal with drought, and we have a national plan that coordinates our response with input from those regions. When there’s too much water, the water boards and Rijkswaterstaat work particularly closely. Across the organizations responsible for water, we have one another’s phone numbers and can get in touch around the clock if we need to. Every two weeks, we look at the weather forecast together and decide whether we need to act early to prevent problems. That kind of practical cooperation is central to what we call 'Slim Watermanagement', or Smart Water Management.
Q: Cyprus relies heavily on desalination, which is expensive and uses a lot of energy. The conference makes the case for reusing water. What does a truly circular water system look like in practice, and why is it more resilient than simply producing more fresh water?
Faasse: To me, a truly circular system is one in which no water goes to waste. We call it closing the loop. Households, farms and businesses collect rainwater and use tap water. After use, the water goes to a treatment plant or a local system, perhaps one serving a neighborhood. It’s then treated so it can be used again. Collected rainwater can be used on farms and in gardens, and we make sure any runoff is clean before it flows back into the water system.
One of the biggest challenges is being careful with our limited supply of drinking-quality water. We still use far too much of it for things that don’t require water of that quality. Reusing water makes the system more resilient because the same supply can serve us again and again.
Right now, we need to produce more and more drinking water and find more sources for it. But climate change means longer droughts and less water flowing through rivers. Supplies are becoming less reliable, especially in summer and now in autumn, too. We’re seeing that in the Netherlands right now. It’s already November, and river flows are dropping to record lows again.
Q: The conference also looked at how authorities work together. Dutch water boards have operated independently for centuries, managing water across municipalities and provinces. In Cyprus, responsibility is spread across several bodies. What would need to change for these solutions to work here?
Plomp: That’s a question for the people and authorities responsible in Cyprus. What I can say from our experience in the Netherlands is that a great deal depends on how well government bodies work together. The Dutch are known for what we call the 'polder model'. It goes back hundreds of years to when cooperation was essential to keeping low-lying areas known as polders dry.
Faasse: It would help if Cyprus’ district authorities worked closely with one another and with central and local government. In the Netherlands, for example, some water boards face more urgent problems than others. The board with the most pressing need can test a new approach. If it works, the others can adopt it. For that to happen, each organization has to be open about the problems it faces and how urgently it needs to act.
Looking beyond your own organization
Q: What are the biggest obstacles to putting new ideas into practice? Is it a question of political will? Can you give us an example of how you got past one of those obstacles in Amsterdam?
Faasse: There has to be someone clearly responsible for solving the problem. Sometimes the obstacle is political will. Sometimes it’s the law.
Take our wastewater treatment plant in Amsterdam. We recover renewable gas and struvite, a phosphate mineral, from sewage. Tax rules prevented us, as a public body, from turning those resources into commercial products ourselves. So we set up a company to do it. The water authority continues to operate as a public body under the tax rules that apply to it. The company processes the recovered materials, and the revenue goes back into making the water system more circular.
Sometimes you have to look beyond the boundaries of your own organization. The solution can be fairly simple, even if it looks different from what you expected.
Q: Cyprus faces prolonged droughts and destructive floods, two extremes of the same problem. How do you prepare for both? And what’s one low-tech solution and one high-tech solution Cyprus could test after the conference?
Faasse: In the Netherlands, we increasingly work on a simple principle. First, hold the water where it falls. Then store what you can. Drain it away as a last resort. Keeping water in the landscape for as long as possible helps reduce flood risk and soften the impact of drought. It also makes both natural and urban water systems more resilient.
The western Netherlands is flat and lies below sea level. We have many polders there, and we can control water levels down to the millimeter. When it rains, the water level can rise for a while without reaching dangerous levels. Cyprus has much more varied terrain. Water runs downhill, gathers at low points and drains away from there.
One low-tech option is to build small barriers or embankments, especially on slopes. They can be as little as 20 centimeters high. That can be enough to slow water running downhill during a storm and guide it somewhere it can be held for later use without causing damage. This could help protect homes from flooding. Terrain models can help work out how high the barriers need to be.
A high-tech option would be flood barriers built into the ground along residential areas that can rise when flash flooding occurs. These cost much more and need regular maintenance and testing to make sure they’ll work when needed. You still have to give the water somewhere safe to go.
Our first choice, wherever possible, is to keep water where it falls. Letting it soak into the soil, for example, replenishes groundwater and supports natural ecosystems. When the ground and landscape can’t hold any more, we store the excess temporarily in ponds, wetlands, designated storage areas or urban facilities built to hold stormwater. Only when those options are exhausted do we drain the water away in a safe, controlled manner.
