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Climate Changing? Meuse Adapting!

News related to action

Tuesday, november 24 2009

WP2 Partners share experience

WP2 Partners - the city of Hotton, RIOU vzw, Waterboard Brabantse Delta - met on 24th November in Hasselt, BE. They presented their investments and the first achievements. All investments deal with natural water retention on small scale basins, tribu...

Thursday, may 20 2010

News about WP2 investments

WP2 Partners met each others on a sunny day to exchange information about their respective investments. All works are ready to start and progress as planned. Partners had also the opportunity to test communication tools like children games or poster...

Thursday, december 9 2010

WP2 meeting

WP2 Partners met in Breda on December 9th under an exceptionally sunny day. The meeting focused mainly on communication : - the GPS route around the Steenbergse Vliet works has been further described, - a general presentation on how to communicate ...

Friday, january 4 2013

Farmers and Floods

Floods are common in Belgium, and specially in one of its larger basins, the Meuse River. Heavy rainfall on the Ardennes mountains causes the few rapid flowing rivers draining this high plateau to inundate in a delay as short as a couple of hours the...

Attached documents

doc meeting report

JPG WP2 Partners

pdf fear wont do it

pdf communication and climate change

pdf SV update

pdf MAE Prairie inondable

WP2 - Natural Water retention

NATURAL WATER RETENTION, an example of NON–STRUCTURAL PROTECTION against future water-related risks – the case of 3 different areas in the Meuse catchment basin.

This workpackage further analyses the opportunities offered by Natural Water Retention (NWR) to tackle floods and low-flows. The limits of this method will also be assessed.

The tests that will be developed here are very different from one another, yet they use the same principles: make room for the river, transform agricultural land into natural space and conserve Natura 2000 zones within floodplains.

Example 1) is located in the upper reaches of the basin: the Wallonian Ardennes, where rainfalls are high, but the floodplains narrow. However, the upstream areas offer ample retention capacity when restored to their natural condition; they are necessary to SLOW DOWN FLOODS and STORE WATER in the ground in case of droughts.

Example 2) is located at the most downstream part of the basin, near the town of Steenbergen. The objective is to enable streams to FLOOD the SURROUDING FIELDS when the water level of the Meuse is too high to allow the stream's water out. While floodplains are wide and flat, competition with crops and grasslands is intense, making this a particularly challenging context.

Example 3) highlights the use of Natura 2000 zones to COMPENSATE FOR CANALISED RIVERS in urbanised areas, here the village of Ny. The objective is to solve water quantities problems, taking into account ecological aspects and poor water quality.

As they are situated in different parts of the Meuse system (1 in the upstream area, 1 in the middle part & 1 really downstream), together they offer a good demonstration of how to work with nature, offer room for the river and enhance the natural water retention capacity. They demonstrate 3 REGIONALLY ADAPTED SOLUTIONS to address one major and shared issue.