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Comment by wombarly | Hacker News Reader

Here in the Netherlands they decided to increase the water level of our lakes by 5cm to handle the drought season this year. Since the amount of snowfall in the Alps was lower than normal.

https://www.rijkswaterstaat.nl/nieuws/archief/2023/04/hoger-...

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It must be nice to live in a country that manages their natural resources with an eye towards long-term sustainability.

If they wouldn't, the Netherlands would literally not exist. Not only are large parts of the country below sea level, there is also the constant threat of flooding via Maas (Meuse) and Rhine. Raising levees is not enough, water management in the Netherlands must always look at the whole country.

It's a conscious choice the citizens made every day for the last century, just like America chose freedom.

What's the other countries excuses?

Freedom from what? Britain?

Freedom from facts.

Freedom Fries

Freedom for weapons

I live in a country with one of the richest water tables in the world. Due to (a forecasted!) drought and lack of planning we're literally running out of water to drink. It's like Saudi Arabia running out of oil, absolutely shameful.

Isn't Netherlands bound to flood as ocean levels rise?

The Netherlands been claiming land from the sea for centuries and some areas are already well below sea level - I don't think they'll neglect their dykes any time soon.

The Afsluitdijk just got heightened and reinforced. As someone who's biked across it, I'm psyched because now you can bike on the North Sea side - previously, there was only 1 bike path on the Zuiderzee side.

https://theafsluitdijk.com/projects/dike-reinforcement/how/

Since the 1400s; ref polder: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polder and https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reclamation_in_the_Neth...

But we're also a river delta, we will run into problems long term because we'd have to pump entire rivers over the dykes.

Also salification and other problems with only pumping out all the time.

Maybe next century, but not anywhere soon.

With all due respect, the Netherlands is perhaps the furthest a place can be from long-term sustainability. The place is a mix of monoculture + concrete.

It won’t be nice when the country is invaded by another country for its water reserves. See: the Middle East

their occupation will be succeeded quickly by that of the sea

Do you have any news how Swiss lakes are affected?

No, I only really know this because it was in the local news a while ago and though it was interesting / related to the OP.

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