Soil subsidence in Dutch peat meadow areas: challenges for solid policy and decision making
UU researchers Martijn van Gils, Frank Groothuijse, Marleen van Rijswick (Utrecht Centre for Water, Oceans and Sustainability Law) and Esther Stouthamer (Department of Physical Geography) have published an article in the Dutch journal Milieu en Recht (Environment and Law), titled ‘’ (Soil subsidence in Dutch peat meadow areas: challenges for solid policy and decision making). The article is part of a special issue, dedicated to the legal aspects of soil subsidence in Dutch peat meadow areas. The article is the first output of legal research into soil subsidence that takes place in the context of the research programme NWA-LOSS (Living on Soft Soils, funded from the National Science Agenda).
NWA-LOSS is a research programme in which researchers from Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ, Wageningen ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ and Research and Delft ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ of Technology collaborate to measure and model the pacing of ongoing subsidence and its impacts, and to develop and test and arrange for new strategies to cope with land subsidence (see ). All four researchers are connected to NWA-LOSS: Esther as project leader, Frank and Marleen as partners of Work Package 4 (measures and governance approaches) and Martijn as PhD researcher in Work Package 4.
In their article, the researchers first describe the human drivers of soil subsidence in peat meadow regions and the adverse effects that soil subsidence has on both rural and urban areas. They then elaborate on the legal and administrative challenges for developing effective strategies of dealing with soil subsidence in the Netherlands. They identify two main challenges: institutional fragmentation and its adverse effects (administrative procrastination to deal with an environmental problem, lack of coordination of administrative duties and powers and the deficient implementation of policies in administrative decisions) and the lack, in most cases, of a policy goal for (the reduction of) soil subsidence. The researchers conclude by giving some recommendations for legal and administrative changes, which could help to (partially) take away these challenges.