12 February 2026 · 16:00–18:30

Berlage Rooms, TU Delft Faculty of Architecture and The Built Environment

The Netherlands is known worldwide as a country shaped by water, yet drought, water shortages, and soil subsidence are becoming everyday realities. The lectures address water and drought as pressing spatial challenges, central to landscape architecture and climate adaptation, bringing together water scarcity as a contemporary issue and water as a long-term shaping force in the Dutch landscape. The event invites students, professionals, and anyone interested in landscape architecture to explore how past and present water systems can inform future-oriented design strategies for a changing climate.

Journalist René Didde highlights drought as an increasingly urgent issue in the Netherlands. Drawing on his book Nederland Droogteland, he shows how climate change and land-use pressure expose the vulnerabilities of the Dutch water system.

Historians and map experts Marieke van Delft and Reinder Storm explore the centuries-long interaction between water and landscape. Based on their book Nederland Waterland more than one hundred historical maps, they reveal how floods, peat lakes, polders, canals, and infrastructure have continuously shaped Dutch territory and society.

Together, the lectures offer a layered understanding of water as both a pressing contemporary challenge and a deep cultural-historical foundation for landscape architecture.