Our starting point

Our Blue Environmental Vision is the foundation on which we are building the current and new Water Management Programme (WMP). We are supplementing existing tasks with new goals for a future-proof living environment.

The Blue Environmental Vision as a basis

In 2021, the Board of Directors adopted the Blue Environmental Vision (BOVi). We continue to use this long-term vision to stay on track with our short-term and medium-term plans. We look far ahead so that we are better able to determine what is needed now for safe, clean, and healthy water. The Blue Environmental Vision describes how we work towards a future-proof living environment: with robust work on water, with customised solutions, and with each other!

The Blue Environmental Vision has six strategic principles that we work on every day.
Three of these relate to the content of our work:

  • Together, we remain 'climate-ready';
  • Our water system is becoming more natural;
  • We are working towards a sustainable world;

There are also three strategic goals that concern how we do our work:

  • We facilitate our partners in spatial development;
  • We are a valued policy partner;
  • We are a socially responsible government.

Read the Blue Environmental Vision.

The current Water Management Programme

The Water Management Programme the water authority works with at the moment runs until 2027. It is based on the Blue Environmental Vision. The programme specifies what we want to have achieved by the end of this period for each specific area. The entire programme can be consulted digitally.

Read the Water Management Programme 2022-2027.

Water and soil have a voice: for future-proof water management    

Since the adoption of the Blue Environmental Vision, the concept of the 'water and soil guiding principle' has become increasingly important. In the Blue Environmental Vision, we still talk about the proper and appropriate use of the 'blue-green-brown subsoil'. In other words: make sure that soil and water remain healthy and have enough space. With a more natural water system without too many technical interventions, the system becomes more robust and can better cope with problems caused by climate change.

That is all easier said than done. In order to give water and soil an adequate voice, all stakeholders must work together. The water authority cannot do this alone. In 2025, we joined forces with many stakeholders to find the answer to the question of how we can best shape sustainable cooperation. It is actually an elaboration on the principles of 'valued policy partner' and 'socially responsible government' from the aforementioned BOVi.

In our research, we identified six building blocks that—always in conjunction with each other—help to achieve sustainable cooperation:

  • Soil and water for later;
  • Good tools;
  • Ability to change;
  • Awareness;
  • With courage;
  • Jointly responsible.

How do these building blocks contribute to sustainable cooperation?
Read more: Give water and soil a voice!

The starting point for our new WMP is that we will continue the work we started in recent years. The BOVi will remain our basis. We will apply the results of the study of how we can best shape sustainable collaboration in our new WMP. We will also explore new developments that are coming our way and which issues no longer need to be included in the WMP.