The Dutch Have No Water

“God made the world, but the Dutch made the Netherlands.”

Important distinction for the quote at 1:15, these generally aren't irrigation canals because the land is plenty wet with groundwater. They are drainage canals used to pump away rising ground water.

If I understand anything about the Netherlands, their engineers will work this one out and their companies will develop the solution into a profitable export. Without invading their neighbours, acrimony or fuss, too. Hup, Holland, Hup.

The positive point is that NL has very strong water-management organizations and companies. At the moment, a lot is invested to adapt procedures and infrastructure to adapt to the changing climate. For instance, in my neighborhood, all streets got new sewer systems. Rainwater is not collected in huge pits, not flooded away via the sewers. Also, the Ijselmeer (the large central "lake") gets a dynamic height. Cities actively remove tiles and add trees. So: sincere attempts to battle the consequences of climate change.

Mwah, there’s enough water, just at the wrong time at the wrong place. This is an engineering problems at which the Dutch are exceptionally good. Have full confidence it can and will be solved.

Drought leads to innovations. Drought also causes salinization: seawater that ends up in our soil and waters. To prevent salinization, there is now a 'bubble screen' at the bottom of the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal. A bubble screen is a large tube with holes through which air is blown. These bubbles stop the salt water from the sea.

Well, I hope that the Dutch win over the US at the match

Your clickbait title got me to the video, but it's very misleading. The Dutch have more water per m2 space than most countries in the world. Just also happen to have more people and loads of industries that have built up to take advantage of it. It's a question of supply (over)demand. That 'renewable water index'' is just farcical. NL is next to Bangladesh, probably the wettest country in the world and as a result supporting a huge population. This is a manmade problem, not a supply problem.

Another major issue is that homes built on wooden piles are rotting with the successive floods and droughts.

Really nice video, wouldn't have imaged the Dutch are so low on fresh water. Impressive how you managed to condense all of that into just 7 minutes! Appreciate the fairphone sponsorship as well, I use their phone myself and was pleasantly surprised to see them sponsoring.

Maybe this is just me being Dutch, but this all sounds like a fun challenge to me!

More rain, less water. So we have more water, less water. Where does the water go then? I'm confused lol

The drought is caused by purposefully guiding water that accumulates during the autumn and winter into the sea to make farmland dry enough to be worked early in the year. The shortage in the summer is for most parts of the Netherlands easy to solve by letting less water flow into the sea and keeping the groundwater levels up.

One of the problems is that farmers like the keep the water table low in wet periods, because that's better for the crops, but that also means there isn't much of a buffer for dry periods.

I'm just a silent viewer amazed by the content. But in times of demotivation remember me and many others are always behind of you.

The good thing is that the Dutch do have the resources and knowhow to fix this. There will be some issues, but I am sure they'll figure it out.

Amazing video as always, as someone living in the Netherlands I can confirm first hand the water management situation you described

Really good content, well performed research and good explained! Thank you, looking forward for more!

Today we celebrate the Netherlands 2:0 win over the US at the World Cup. Tomorrow we think about water issues.🤪

Wait, fairphone's making sponsorships in videos?? NOICE