{"id":483678,"date":"2026-06-09T10:04:07","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T10:04:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/483678\/"},"modified":"2026-06-09T10:04:07","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T10:04:07","slug":"pollution-climate-change-are-hitting-dutch-fresh-water-nature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/483678\/","title":{"rendered":"Pollution, climate change are hitting Dutch fresh water nature"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">The quality of the Netherlands\u2019 lakes, rivers and marshland is deteriorating again after decades of improvement, and that is hurting plants, fish and other wildlife, according to the Dutch arm of the World Wildlife Fund.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">The latest edition of the Living Planet Report Nederland, published every two years, says that Dutch fresh water areas had been doing better, thanks to improvements in water quality and tougher pollution controls, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nu.nl\/binnenland\/6398619\/jarenlang-verbeterde-natuur-zich-in-waterrijke-gebieden-maar-die-tijd-is-voorbij.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">news website Nu.nl<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">This had allowed the otter and beaver to flourish, and boosted the presence of marshland birds such as the bluethroat. But that trend has now changed, the organisation says.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">Researchers studied population trends in 176 different species which live in fresh water areas. They found a 60% improvement between 1990 and 2025, as new restrictions reduced chemical and waste dumping. By contrast, on land populations fell by some 30% over the same period.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">However, most of the gains were made up to 2010, the researchers say. The current reversal is down to a loss of natural river bank habitats, changes in water levels and pesticide run-off in agricultural areas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">In addition, the researchers warn that medicine residue, PFAS and climate change are a \u201ccontinual and growing threat\u201d, and that native species are being eased out by invasive flora and fauna from other places, such as the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dutchnews.nl\/2025\/02\/flatter-river-banks-may-dent-huge-american-crayfish-numbers\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">American crayfish<\/a>, which have few predators.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal leading-[1.7]\">Next year the Netherlands is supposed to conform to European water quality rules and experts say the Netherlands is unlikely to make the deadline.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-pre-wrap leading-[1.7]\">The WWF and other experts are calling on the Netherlands to develop a comprehensive and integrated package of measures to improve water quality.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-pre-wrap leading-[1.7]\">\u201cIf you give nature the space, it will come back,\u201d said WWF-NL director Jelle de Jong, in the report\u2019s introduction. \u201cLook at the sea eagle, otter and beaver. Dutch nature is resilient. But if we want fresh water nature to do well, we really have to get to work on it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The quality of the Netherlands\u2019 lakes, rivers and marshland is deteriorating again after decades of improvement, and that&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":483679,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[242,85,46,141],"class_list":["post-483678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483678","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483678\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/483679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}