Scientific support MBL

This assignment takes place in the context of the Interreg Meuse-Rhine project “SPONGE”. This project will run from October 2025 to October 2028 and aims to increase the resilience of the landscape against drought and flooding thanks to an improved sponge effect. The Grenzeloos Bocageland Landscape Park is one of the partners within SPONGE and the leader of work package 1. The park covers the territory of the municipalities of Eijsden-Margraten, Gulpen-Wittem and Vaals in the Dutch province of Limburg, Voeren in the Belgian province of Limburg and the municipalities of Dalhem, Aubel and Plombières in the province of Liège. These municipalities are located in a common bocage landscape, which is locally called Heuvelland, Voerstreek and Land van Herve respectively, and also have in common that they are all located on the Dutch-Belgian national border and/or on the Belgian language border. These administrative boundaries bring challenges, including in the domain of water management. The administrative boundaries do not coincide with the natural boundaries of the three river basins within the landscape park. This concerns the catchment areas of the watercourses Berwijn, Voer and Geul. The area was hit hard by floods several times in the past decade, in particular during the floods of July 2021 and May 2024. The combination of the pronounced relief, land use - including the location of residential areas in the landscape - and climate change makes the region vulnerable. Just like the flood risk, the drought risk has also increased due to climate change, with the extreme drought in the summer of 2026 as the most recent manifestation of this. A cornerstone of SPONGE is solidarity between upstream and downstream residents and land users. After all, the fate of stakeholders downstream depends on the measures taken upstream. After all, the advantages and disadvantages of “Nature Based Solutions” (NBS) do not only affect those who take the measure