Science Central: From rain to drop: water is everyone’s concern

Past summers, with high temperatures and little rain, have confronted us with the dry fact that Flanders is vulnerable to water scarcity. Global warming adds even more: the pressure on our water supplies will increase in the years to come.

In the run-up to World Water Day (March 22), we interview Jonas Lembrechts and Jan Staes (environmentalists / biologists at the Global Change Ecology Center, UAntwerp) to highlight the challenges in terms of water use and management. They invite everyone to think about the difficult dilemmas that can arise with extreme or persistent water scarcity. Are our streams completely dry? Is there still water coming out of the tap? How can we proactively ensure that drought is less likely to cause water scarcity? How to better manage water during flooding, so that it can be used in summer to deal with shortages? What can agriculture – both victim and part of the solution – do to tackle water scarcity? How can we contribute to the solutions ourselves, in our urbanized and densely populated landscape?

Ask your questions yourself during the Café Scientifique of the University of Antwerp (in the chat or in advance by e-mail: [email protected]) and the moderator Sven Pichal will present them to our climatologists.