2020

A Journey Through the Meuse River Basin

In Search of Insight and Overview. The 1972 article serves as a practical starting point for this purpose. What has changed in the river basin over the past fifty years, and what do these changes mean for the use of the river?

This question is presented to a number of experts: Jean-Noël Pansera, Secretary-General of the International Meuse Commission; Aleksandra Jaskula, Policy Advisor at Rijkswaterstaat Zuid-Nederland; Patrick Willems, Professor at KU Leuven; and Bernard Becker, Researcher at Deltares. Finally, RIWA-Maas Director Maarten van der Ploeg explains what the described changes mean for the future supply of drinking water from the Meuse, and what needs to be done as a result.

The Importance of the International Meuse Commission

Jean-Noël Pansera is the Secretary-General of the International Meuse Commission (IMC), guardian of the International Meuse Treaty of Ghent (2002) signed by the Governments of the Federal Republic of Germany, the Kingdom of Belgium, the Brussels-Capital Region of Belgium, the Flemish Region of Belgium, the Walloon Region of Belgium, the French Republic, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. To gain insight into developments within the basin, he was asked: what stands out in the 1972 article?

Pansera notes: "In my opinion, the biggest change in 50 years lies in the changing use of the Meuse water. Today, we are dealing with intensive agriculture in parts of the basin, nuclear power plants have been built, more and larger ships navigate the river, and the soil in the Meuse basin has been largely built up and paved over. These changes also impact the hydrological situation, which is different from 50 years ago."

To be clear: according to Pansera, the IMC does not govern water use within the Meuse basin. "After all, the countries and regions are sovereign. The IMC is more of a meeting place to share objectives. We facilitate information exchange and share research results. With these, we develop a joint work program to improve the quality of the Meuse and solve problems."

The IMC and Managing Exceptionally Low Water Levels

Pansera provides an example: "In 2020, the IMC compiled a summary of completed studies on the impacts of climate change on the river basin. To address climate-related problems in the catchment area, an action plan was drawn up for managing exceptional low-water situations in the Meuse basin. This is the result of international cooperation between all contracting parties of the IMC."

The IMC study focuses on three themes. Pansera explains: "First, how do we define a low-water event, and when do we consider it to be extreme low water? To establish this, we collected all available data from the river basin, originating from three gauging stations: in France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. We applied a statistical exercise to this data to make it comparable.

This involves a combined measurement series spanning from 1960 to 2018. Within this series, the years 1964 and 1976 stand out as extremely dry years. The year 2018 was one of the driest years primarily for the Netherlands. Recent drought figures from the past few years have not yet been incorporated into these statistics."

A second question in the IMC research concerns the consequences and problems that occur within the basin during extreme low water. According to Pansera, drought does not hit all areas of the Meuse basin equally hard.

"Extreme low water carries a major impact particularly in the Netherlands and Flanders. In France and Wallonia, there is no intensive agriculture; furthermore, groundwater is used there for drinking water production. In those regions, Meuse water is used as cooling water for nuclear power plants, which causes the river water to warm up. One of our recommendations is to launch a study into the temperature of the Meuse water across the entire basin."

Further Recommendations from IMC Studies

The work of the IMC yielded additional conclusions and recommendations: "The most important recommendation is to expand the joint monitoring network in the Meuse basin. Until now, water discharge has only been measured on the main stem of the Meuse itself and on a few tributaries, but not yet on all tributaries across the catchment area. For instance, data on the Rur, the Vesdre, and the Dommel is lacking. Yet, this information is vital to gain a clear view of the total water supply and how the basin functions as a whole."

Another recommendation is to make the weekly drought data available not only to experts within the delegations but also to publish it on the IMC website, making the information accessible to the general public. According to Pansera, this proposal has since been approved by the delegations and will be implemented. What are the next steps? "Because we are only just beginning our research into low water in the Meuse basin, it is crucial that this work is continued. At the end of the year, the plenary meeting of the IMC will decide on the implementation of a second phase."