This is Integrated River Basin Management
Over the coming decades, the national government, provinces, regional water authorities, and municipalities in the Netherlands will be working together to create healthy, navigable, safe, and attractive Meuse-Rhine basins.
Our ambition
Our ambition is to create a future-proof river system that is multi-purpose and functions properly as a system.
We’ll factor in input from civil society organizations, other interest groups, and knowledge institutions. And as the river basin doesn’t stop at the Dutch border, we’ll also coordinate the plans with our partner authorities in Germany and Belgium.
Our tasks
The Dutch River basins are important economically, ecologically, and recreationally, and also represent an iconic landscape. However, various developments are harming the balance of this river system. The climate is changing: sea levels are rising, rainfall is becoming more extreme, and we’re experiencing longer periods of drought and heat. The river system itself has become unbalanced due to earlier interventions that are making the riverbed ever deeper.
The river basins face many challenges, whether in terms of water safety, navigability, availability of freshwater, water quality, nature, or ensuring an aesthetically and economically attractive environment in which to live, work, and relax.
A single integrated vision
Although these tasks must be viewed holistically, there isn’t enough space or scope to fulfil every wish. It’s clear that a sectoral approach no longer works. We need to approach the river as a single system again, to bring tasks together, and to assess and fulfil them based on a single, integrated vision. Only then can we keep the Meuse and Rhine River basins healthy and attractive. We’re committed to a multi-purpose use of the rivers and the surrounding areas while respecting the characteristics of the different distributaries.
A Programme under the Omgevingswet
We’ll lay down our integral vision for IRM in a Programme under the Environment and Planning Act (POW), which should be finalized in 2024. The POW will replace the current structure vision (Structuurvisie) once the new Dutch Omgevingswet enters into force in 2024 our POW will also set out our ambitions for drainage capacity and ground settlement. In addition, the POW will describe the type of measures that are needed to harmonize our integrated vision with the international locations where we want to realize these measures. We’ll also agree on how we want to realize the plans together over the coming decades.
Keep up to date
This website is still under development, and we’ll add more information in more languages over time. If you have a question, suggestion, or request or want to stay up to date or have a say in developments related to IRM, please e-mail us.