What are water boards? Corine Houben explains the politics of keeping the Netherlands dry

Water management may not seem like an especially sexy topic, but in a country where about one-third of the ground is below sea level, it can be a matter of life or death. Water management has been a part of Dutch history since long before the Netherlands was even a single unified country, but most Dutch people don't exactly know what the government entity that manages the water, the water boards, actually do. Even though the concept of making sure that the country doesn't end up underwater seems pretty uncontroversial, there is a political side to water boards – should they focus exclusively on keeping water clean and keeping the land dry, or should they also be responsible for recreational use? Should the agricultural sector be charged more than private households for their water use? Corine Houben is a researcher at COELO, the Center for Research of local governments, recently carried out research into the difference in water board taxation rates across the country, so Econ 050 wanted to find out what this vitally important but little understood branch of government really does, and why your vote matters.

You can listen to What are water boards? Corine Houben explains the politics of keeping the Netherlands dry online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

What are water boards? Corine Houben explains the politics of keeping the Netherlands dry is an episode from Econ 050 by Naomi O'Leary.

This episode is 27:02 long.

This episode was published on Mar 8, 2019.

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