Twenty-five or thirty years ago, everyone would have laughed at you if you had said that Flanders would one day be confronted with a water shortage. In an overcast country like ours? Come off it! And yet today the water level is historically low, we face substantial nitrate pollution, and climate change has brought dry summers and wet winters. And these are but a few problems. The Water + Land + Schap programme of the Vlaamse Landmaatschappij (VLM), in cooperation with eight partners, is looking for sustainable answers. ‘But from the bottom up!’

A water system under pressure is a wicked problem. It touches everything. Take the agroindustries, for instance: intensive cattle breeding and monocultures pollute and impoverish the soil, the result being that the soil then absorbs less water and carbon. They use so much water that it has to be pumped up. This further depletes the water level. Urbanization and too much asphalting also impede water penetration. All the water flows straight into the sea. And when that is not the case, dangerous flash floods occur, despite the dry conditions.