Climate change is making the sandy regions in East Friesland increasingly vulnerable to drought. We are working with farmers, water authorities and local collectives on an area-based approach to improve water retention and thereby reduce drought damage.
Climate change is making the sandy regions in East Friesland increasingly vulnerable to drought. We are working with farmers, water authorities and local collectives on an area-based approach to improve water retention and thereby reduce drought damage.
Due to climate change, both waterlogging and prolonged drought are occurring more frequently (see KNMI climate scenarios). As a result, crop failure is becoming more common. Agriculture must therefore adapt to more extreme weather conditions.
In the Frisian sandy region, future climate scenarios point in particular to increasing drought damage, which already amounts to approximately €4 million per year. Previous research shows that local, farm-specific water conservation measures are the most effective in reducing such damage. By scaling up these local measures, it is possible to reduce the climate-related damage in Friesland’s sandy regions by more than half.
To make dairy farming in the Frisian sandy regions less vulnerable to drought damage in particular, more water will need to be retained at the landscape scale. This requires collaboration between stakeholders such as farmers, the water authority, and land management organisations.
The question, however, is how far this regional scaling should go, and how the regional approach should be organised. At present, there is a lack of proper coordination and organisation, which hinders the effective and efficient implementation of water conservation, and stalls efforts to make dairy farming climate-resilient in the sandy regions of eastern Friesland.
The aim of this project is to strengthen the future prospects of agriculture in the sandy region in the east of the province of Friesland (an area predominantly used for dairy farming) by making the region less vulnerable to drought and drought-related damage caused by climate change.
To this end, the project is developing a method that enables farmers, the water authority and the collectives in these sandy areas to jointly implement water conservation effectively and efficiently in practice.
The project will produce a blueprint for water conservation at the landscape scale, increasing water availability for agriculture in synergy with water availability for nature and society. The blueprint will offer guidance for both the design and implementation of physical measures, as well as the appropriate forms of collaboration and coordination.
Developing an efficient method for effective water conservation at the landscape scale is an important step towards a future-proof and sustainable dairy sector in sandy regions – in Friesland and beyond.
The following degree programmes will be involved in this project:
Name applied research group: Sustainable Water Systems
Project duration: 18-07-2025 - 31-03-2027
Budget: € 493.728,40
Project partners: Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences, Mts. G.C. van 't Klooster and G.T. van der Sluis, Mts. Witteveen Oldetrijne, Het Hooihuis, Mts. van der Wal, Mts. A.J.A. and Y. van Noordenburg, NHL Stenden University of Applied Sciences, Wageningen Livestock Research. In addition, close collaboration takes place with ELAN Southeast Friesland, LTO Noord, Noardlike Fryske Wâlden, Province of Friesland and Wetterskip Fryslân.
Professor Peter van der Maas studied Environmental Science at the Prof. H.C. van Hall Institute in Groningen, a predecessor of Van Hall Larenstein University of Applied Sciences (BSc, 1991). He then studied Environmental Hygiene at Wageningen University & Research (MSc, 1993). In 2005, he obtained his PhD from Wageningen University with an innovative concept for removing NOx from industrial flue gases.