How Regional Water Management can Profit from the Water Footprint Method: a Dutch Example
October 2011
The Netherlands
During the coming months Oranjewoud will support the Dutch Wadden Islands (a group of islands in the north of the Netherlands) in their attempt to improve the sustainability of their water management.
Oranjewoud will use the Water Footprint Method to determine the water footprint of the islands and opportunities for improving their water management. Students from a College in the North of the Netherlands are working together with Oranjewoud on this project, that is part of the Governmental Project "Fries Bestuursakkoord Waterketen".
Several governmental authorities (Province of Fryslân, the municipalities in Friesland, the Water company Vitens and the Water Management Board of Friesland) came to an agreement in 2009 to start to manage all water chains and rivers, seas, lakes and smaller water in the province in a sustainable way.
This agreement is rectified in the "Fries Bestuursakkoord Waterketen". The Dutch Wadden Islands are subject to this agreement and have agreed that they want to become pioneers in the sustainable use of water.
Water Footprint Method
The first milestone of the project is to map the water chain of the islands. Oranjewoud is using the internationally recommended Water Footprint Method for this process. Questions to be answered in this initial process are: "How is water used on the islands, how can the islands improve the sustainability of their water management, and which measurements are most likely to contribute successfully to reducing the water footprint?"
Toon Boonekamp, Senior Project Consultant comments;
"Usually, the Water Footprint Method is used to measure the water usage in the water chain of a product or company. So the fact that we use the method to analyse an entire region is what makes this project so unique and innovative."
The results of the water usage investigation will be translated into specific recommendations from the study that will improve the sustainability of the region. There is a broad scale of activities that can be adopted, for example renewal of the sanitation, recycling of water, separate run off from sewer to surface water and education.
Students
One purpose of the project is to support the education of students of the "Noordelijke Hogeschool Leeuwarden (NHL)". They will be working together with Oranjewoud to determine the Water Footprint of the islands.
For more information please contact:
Toon Boonekamp, toon.boonekamp@oranjewoud.nl
Coert Ruseler, Coert.ruseler@oranjewoud.nl