The Delfland region is one of the most densely populated and most highly industrialized areas of The Netherlands. Due to climate change there is an increasing chance of intensive precipitation, drought and a rising temperature in the region of Delfland. The region of Delfland is strongly dependent on fresh water and different stakeholders either need fresh water or have a task to maintain the fresh water sources in this region. To have enough fresh water in the future Delfland, together with the relevant water managing organizations, want to explore whether the current system is still adequate and if not what kind of system would be designed. Hence, at Delfland the following question was raised: What would the fresh water system of the future look like, in physical properties as well as in governance structures?
To answer this question, four participants to the EJWP namely Mathilde De Jongh (Delfland Water Authority, Delfland), Ingrid Keupers (De Watergroep, Flanders), Rhys Hellin (Dwr Cymru Welsh Water, Wales), Hedviga Horvathova (Technical University of Košice, Košice) worked together as a team to describe different possible future water systems for their respective regions. To achieve this, an analysis was made of the trends and developments that are currently occurring in Europa using PESTEL (Political, Economical, Social, Technological, Environmental, Legal) framework. Among the trends that were seen as important for most regions where; climate change and urbanization. Trends that were very typical for only one region were for example increased activity in the underground in Delfland or the increased recreational use of water in Košice.
Based on extreme thinking on these trends a possible story of a future water system in the different regions was created. During the presentation of the project these stories were drawn in real time. For the team members this was a nice addition to this out-of-the box project!