The Netherlands has traditionally been a water-rich country where people are accustomed to draining water as quickly as possible to prevent flooding of agricultural land, homes and businesses. As a result, water scarcity, drought and soil desiccation are recurring problems.
The Twente region, too, has long been struggling with soil desiccation – a structural shortage of water in the soil and a decline in groundwater levels – but the urgency of the problem has increased significantly in recent years, partly due to climate change. Due to historical infrastructure designed for water drainage, intensive land use, compacted soils and increasing water demand, the water system is becoming increasingly unable to retain water. This results in water scarcity and has a negative impact on agriculture, nature, industry and housing.
The region is already working hard on solutions – significant and often successful experiments are already taking place on a small scale, but these rarely lead to wider implementation. For example, there have already been several pilot projects using greywater for industrial or sanitary applications. Investment costs, strict legislation (particularly regarding applications in the food industry) and limited funding opportunities constitute a major barrier to this. A recurring theme here is that there is no business case for water and that fewer subsidies are available for it (compared to other sectors such as energy).
In 2025, the Climate Centre at the University of Twente, with support from the Climate Initiative Netherlands (KIN), launched a Knowledge-in-Action programme. The aim: to no longer approach the drought challenge as a series of isolated technical problems and symptom management, but as a transition. The analysis shows that a fundamental change is needed in how we think about and deal with water, space, governance and societal values.
Methodology: Transition analysis and Crutzen workshop
Over the past few months, the University of Twente has carried out a transition analysis in collaboration with and validated by regional authorities, businesses and other relevant organisations. The transition analysis is based on interviews with regional public and private stakeholders, previous research in East Brabant and insights from various regional and international programmes.
The following overarching transition question emerges from the interviews:
How can the water transition in Twente be designed in such a way that – given increasing drought, historical choices and other societal transitions – a resilient and equitable water system is created?
Seven transition themes
The interviews show that a truly resilient water system requires coherent changes in thinking, practices, policy and organisation. Based on the analysis, seven themes have been identified that determine the pace and direction of the water transition. Transition questions have been formulated for each of these dimensions: areas where knowledge, policy or cooperation is still lacking in order to take steps forward.
What transition questions have we identified?
- Urgency & perception: How do we create a stable, shared sense of urgency that enables fundamental change?
- Roles & responsibilities: What distribution of roles and responsibilities supports system change?
- Vision, collaboration & governance: How do we arrive at a shared and guiding vision, and who takes the lead in this?
- Policy instruments (legal, economic, communicative): Which instruments are needed to steer water use towards sustainability and future-proofing?
- Local approach versus system requirements: How do we link local initiatives with regional and cross-border system challenges?
- Interactions with other transitions: How do we ensure that transitions reinforce rather than hinder one another?
- Spatial planning: How do we ensure that water availability actually guides spatial decisions?
There are plenty of experiments taking place that are designed from a transition perspective, and there is no shortage of knowledge development either. What is missing is a shared vision and direction. The transition analysis and the resulting research programme aim to contribute to this by approaching the challenge from a transition perspective. Central to this is recognising the need for fundamental change. It calls for a different, smarter and more resilient approach to water – in dry and wet times alike. This also requires, in part, breaking down existing culture, patterns and structures; not all interests can be served always and everywhere.
What does the KIN do
At the KIN, we view transition practices as the starting point for a new research agenda within the ‘Knowledge in Action’ programme line. These practices question and challenge the current norm based on the hypothesis that an economic transition is both possible and desirable. The initiatives and experiments involved explore what the new economy looks like and how it can be developed simply by doing it.
To support the next phase, KIN aims to bring together practical knowledge of the transition to planetary health with research and other collaborative partners. The aim of a KIN transition programme is to identify, through new practices, where the barriers lie within the current system and what (institutional) preconditions are necessary for the desired transition. The added value of bringing together research and practice lies in supporting, legitimising, institutionalising and potentially helping to disseminate the transition on a much larger scale. In this process, we use research, creativity, imagination and action as tools to move forward. By carrying out experimental interventions together to explore the next phase of the desired transition, we gain evolving insights and actually advance the practice.
