Henk Schepers: Managing water is not the same as charging your battery occasionally

Running up to the 2023 elections for the water authority "Waterschap de Dommel", Henk Schepers explains the challenges of managing water in the Eindhoven Brainport region. Making sure that nature, farming and the population have enough water even in a dry summer cannot just be solved by just filling a big reservoir. The soil needs to contain enough water continuously to avoid irreversible changes and to ensure that it can still suck up water in wetter periods afterwards. The “battery model”, just cycle charge- discharge is a dangerous misperception that can heavily impact nature and farmland if we would use that as the operational model for managing water.

In a Radio 4 Brainport interview with Jean-Paul Linnartz, Henk Schepers also mentions that in a country full of water experts, still the Brainport region can contribute much more to sustainable water management by offering technical solutions to clean medication residues from sewage water.

Besides pollution by inhabitants, farming, or economic activities, the many criminal drug factory are a very costly factor in keeping our water safe. In Brabant these are a big issue. Illegal dumps in nature pose a huge cost to society.