大象传媒

The Netherlands often conjures images of quaint houses alongside windmills, tulip fields, and the country鈥檚 iconic canals. But in addition to attracting tourists, these waterways are the site of a growing vulnerability: rising sea levels.

And while an overabundance of water is a major threat to the Netherlands, the even greater threat for the country is actually a lack of it. 鈥淭he concept of droughts in the Netherlands is new to most people,鈥� explains Frank van Gaalen, a researcher with the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL). 鈥淚t doesn鈥檛 match the image of the Netherlands as a country that lies, for a large part, beneath sea level, is surrounded by sea, and contains rivers, lakes, canals, and ditches.鈥�

When van Gaalen published a report that pointed out the danger of droughts this year, people鈥攅ven locally鈥攔eacted with 鈥渁mazement and disbelief.鈥�

Having too little water and having too much share a common cause: climate change. 鈥淲e know that climate change is already happening and will continue. The way we are dealing with water in the Netherlands will have to take all these threats into consideration together,鈥� van Gaalen says.聽

So while leaders work to combat both floods and droughts, they also have to consider the fact that the land itself is sinking鈥攁 process called subsidence. And some researchers are pointing out that the measures the government has been implementing against floods are insufficient and overly reliant on technological solutions, such as dikes. 

鈥淚f we keep on increasing our coastal protection only with grey structures鈥攆or example, a concrete dike鈥攕ubsidence behind the dike will continue and sea level will rise,鈥� says Marte Stoorvogel, a researcher at Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ). 鈥淎t some point you鈥檙e creating some kind of situation where when it goes wrong, it will go really badly wrong.鈥澛�

For the last 20 years or so, various Dutch initiatives have tried to tackle the problem. For example, the Amsterdam district of IJburg is known for its floating houses that move with the rise and fall of a lake called IJmeer. Since the severe river floods of 1993 and 1995, the government introduced a new approach, a project called Ruimte voor de Rivier ), which tries to give back swaths of land to previously regulated rivers, letting them meander, and even overflow as necessary. Dunes are also getting more attention, not just as beautiful nature preserves, but also as dynamic, biodiverse areas that can offer an additional buffer against the effects of climate change.

The sustainable solutions that Stoorvogel and her team are working on envision a transition zone that incorporates both water and land. The work also includes making sure people in the Netherlands don鈥檛 only see the sea as a threat. 

鈥淚nstead of keeping the boundary between sea and land very sharp, we need to start incorporating the sea more into our landscape,鈥� she says. 

A More Spiritual Solution

For Stoorvogel, inspiration to solve this issue came from an unlikely source: a powerful but little-known goddess called Nehalennia. While the goddess was worshiped in the Netherlands in pre-Christian times, Stoorvogel is now hoping to introduce her to more of the modern Dutch population as a way to 鈥渞econnect with the water in a spiritual way and see also the beauty in it.鈥�

Nehalennia鈥攇oddess of the sea, as well as fertility and rebirth鈥攑lays an important role in Dutch neopaganism today. According to Hanneke Minkjan, an independent researcher who wrote her , Nehalennia was declared the most important female deity in the Netherlands during the 2006 Goddess Conference, despite the fact that not much was known about her.聽

鈥淧eople immediately embraced the scarce evidence because they had something tangible, something that was really there,鈥� explains Peter Versteeg, a cultural anthropologist at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam who specializes in neopaganism and religion. 鈥淪he was a goddess of seafarers and travelers, and her altar was found in the sea. I can imagine that this has been very inspiring to a lot of Dutch neopagans.鈥�

Even though the majority of the population in the Netherlands identifies as non-religious, Stoorvogel set out to create an altar to Nehalennia. She teamed up with the Berlin-based art studio Nonhuman Nonsense, which describes itself as 鈥渁 research-driven design and art studio creating near-future fabulations and experiments somewhere between utopia and dystopia.鈥� comprises natural components, such as wood and mud, as well as an AI-generated triptych of the goddess and a space that allows visitors to listen to the sounds of the sea through a shell.

The project, called聽鈥淢ud and Flood: The Return of Nehalennia鈥� won the Bio, Art and Design (BAD) Award in 2022 from a consortium of various scientific and cultural institutions in the province, demonstrating that the goddess can garner interest from scientific, artistic, and environmental communities as well.

Stoorvogel hopes that becoming aware of Nehalennia鈥檚 importance to this country鈥攁s well as her function as a medium between the sea and humans鈥攃ould help change the stance of people trying to keep water out at all costs. 鈥淭he water doesn鈥檛 always have to be a threat,鈥� she says. 鈥淚nstead of letting water into our landscape and seeing it as a gigantic loss, [we can see] the beauty of it.鈥�

A return to nature is an overarching theme in neopaganism, which is 鈥渇irmly associated with nature spirituality, the worship of nature, the energy of nature, the energy of the elements,鈥� explains Versteeg. 鈥淭his is another form of inspiration, and that鈥檚 when people turn to nature and try to become aware of it.鈥� 

That awareness can be an essential tool for combating climate change. 

From Landscape to Seascape

At a time when the lack of water in the Netherlands is becoming an even bigger threat than an overabundance, it becomes crucial to consider what the sea, lakes, and rivers truly mean to a country so long defined by them. 鈥淲ith climate change bringing more, longer, and more extreme dry and hot periods, we have to find a new balance between discharging of excess water and conserving water for dry periods,鈥� van Gaalen says.

While attempts to fight drought are less known than the struggle against the water, they do exist. For example, the Ijsselmeer鈥攁 reservoir that provides fresh drinking water to Amsterdam and its surroundings鈥攈as fluctuating water levels. This makes it possible to store more water in the wet winter months that can then be used during the drier summer months. 

The Dutch government has also implemented measures for spatial planning they call , or 鈥渨ater and soil guiding,鈥� which involves, among other things, opting for and no longer building apartments or houses in areas prone to flooding.

Implementing so many systemic changes would require a paradigm shift. 鈥淭he most important aspect in these considerations is adapting our activities and land use to the possibilities and restrictions of our water, soil, and natural systems,鈥� explains van Gaalen, 鈥渋ncluding accepting that not all activities are possible on all locations.鈥澛�

But maybe solutions can be found in a more spiritual approach alongside a purely technological one. 

鈥淣ehalennia and her history and characteristics are a way of showing people that we don鈥檛 have to fight against the water,鈥� Stoorvogel says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 about trying to open up to the idea that it鈥檚 part of our landscape.鈥�