Peter Glas will step down as Delta Commissioner at the end of this year

Peter Glas will retire at the end of this year. By then, he will have served almost 5 years as the government commissioner for the Delta program. Glas managed to make himself heard as Commissioner Delta during these 5 years; his advice on, among other things, flood risk management and climate-proof construction is echoed in the firm’s policy for the spatial redevelopment of the Netherlands.

From December 1, Glas will hand over its activities to a new Delta Commissioner to be appointed. Recruitment of the new government commissioner for the Delta Program will begin next month.

Glas (Hoorn, 1956) started on January 1, 2019 as government commissioner for the Delta program. He succeeds Wim Kuijken, who retired that year. Glas was deputy deputy of the De Dommel water board when it was announced that he would become the new Commissioner of the Delta. Shortly before his departure for the Delta program, the province thanked him with the highest provincial distinction, so that he began his new job as an honorary citizen of North Brabant.

Glass has been working in the water sector for forty years now. After studying biology and Dutch law, he began in 1983 as a researcher-consultant at the Waterloopkundig Laboratorium in Delft, now Deltares. As a member of the Board of Directors, he was President of the Union des Régies de l’Eau (2010 to 2015). Until last year he was International Chair of the OECD Water Governance Initiative and is now Chairman of the Board of IHE Delft.

spoon on top
In December last year, he began his second term as commissioner of the Delta program. In this role, Glas campaigned for additional funding for new flood risk management projects under the Delta Fund and he drew attention to the need for climate-proof construction. in the Nederlands. “We must step up, we must accelerate and intensify,” he wrote when presenting the Delta program for 2021. It was the first revised version of the program, a moment of reflection that takes place every year during six years.

Then, the extreme rainfall that caused major flooding in Limburg in the summer of 2021 had not yet arrived. The disaster was a defining event for Glas’ water security vision. He said in an interview with H₂O: “All of this will be further analyzed, but the first lesson I draw from it is this: nature, in this case the rains, can still be more extreme than we had imagined”.

And: “If we want room for the river and security along the river with quays, dykes, walls, etc., then the question is justified: but what about space along the river? And with the space in the city center, in the residential districts and in the villages and with the space for water in the countryside?

Control water and soil
As independent government commissioner for the National Delta Programme, his advice has been invaluable to the cabinet, as evidenced by the letter to parliament late last year on the development of the policy principle “steering water and soil” for spatial planning redevelopment of the Netherlands. Minister Mark Harbers and Secretary of State Vivianne Heijnen have written to the House of Representatives to follow the advice of Delta Commissioner Peter Glas and Nitrogen Ombudsman Johan Remkes in developing the Water and Soil Principle as guiding element.

“The Commissioner of the Delta program recommends setting aside sufficient space for flood risk management, ensuring sufficient fresh water, protecting strategic groundwater resources, spatial adaptation, management of multilevel flood risks and the transition of the rural area. The Delta Commissioner stresses that the time for non-engagement is over,” the ministers said in the letter to parliament.

A criterion has also been developed so that municipalities and builders can better take into account the consequences of climate change and extreme weather conditions, such as heavy rains and longer dry and hot periods, in new residential areas and houses.