July 16, 2026 – Wildlife groups welcomed a Dutch government plan to develop a system of side channels on the Waal River, the main distributary of the Rhine River in the Netherlands. The Living Rivers coalition said the proposal could help create a more natural river, while Mammal Protection Netherlands said the plan could establish new habitat for species including otters.
The multi-channel system could either be developed as a nature-led restoration project or as a more technical engineering solution, the Living Rivers coalition of World Wildlife Fund and ARK Rewilding Nederland said in a statement on July 15. The group is advocating for the most natural variant, saying that would make the river safer while leaving room for natural processes and riverine nature.
The concept of the multi-channel system as developed by WWF, ARK and nature-development advisory Bureau Stroming “is great: it provides a solution for riverbed incision, flood safety and a rich nature, with essential core habitat for mammals,” said Ellen van Norren, program leader at Mammal Protection Netherlands, in a separate statement.
The Dutch government on July 10 proposed a package of measures as part of the Space for the River 2.0 program, aimed at stabilising the beds of the Meuse and Rhine rivers to halt further riverbed incision. The aim is to improve navigability at times of low water as well as counteract damage to agriculture, nature and foundations caused by falling river water levels.
The riverbeds of the various Rhine arms in the Netherlands have been falling since the rivers have been canalised with groynes and dikes that increase water flow speeds, according to Levende Rivieren. The Rhine cuts about 2 centimetres into its bed every year, and the river bottom is now more than 2 meters lower than a century ago, the coalition said.
The Integral Multiple-Channel Concept was developed by WWF, Bureau Stroming and ARK starting in 2019, with the idea of countering bottom erosion in combination with nature development and broader societal benefits.
While the Netherlands’ river region today is not part of the core habitat for the Eurasian otter (Lutra lutra) due to a lack of vegetation underwater and onshore, the side channels could provide suitable conditions, according to Mammal Protection Netherlands.
Eurasian beavers (Castor fiber) could play a role in shaping vegetation in the expanded river landscape, while species including the European polecat (Mustela putorius), pond bat (Myotis dasycneme) and stoat (Mustela erminea) would benefit from messier shore zones, the association said.
The tundra vole subspecies Alexandromys oeconomus arenicola, an ice-age relict subspecies found only in the Netherlands, would benefit from the swampy islands and denser shore vegetation created by the multi-channel system, Mammal Protection Netherlands said.
The Dutch government is budgeting €802 million for program measures that will be implemented through to 2039 through the Space for the River 2.0 program. The plan aims to better prepare the Dutch rivers region for the impact of climate change.
Riverbed incision combined with low water causes impacts including drying out of nature and agriculture, according to the government, which said the Netherlands faced six very dry summers in the past eight years, with extremely low water level. Water levels in the Rhine arms are again extremely low this month.
“That shows we have to deal with our water differently,” said Jaap Slootmaker, the director-general for water and soil at the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, in a July 10 statement. “We must not only be able to drain water quickly, but also ensure that we can retain water for dry periods.”
For the Waal river, the government says its preferred solution is to develop a multi-channel river system in combination with sediment supplementation for a stretch of river of about 64 kilometres upstream of the city of Zaltbommel, while work on the Meuse will initially focus on supplementing sediment to stabilise the river bottom.
The approach would create several side channels alongside the Waal’s main channel to give the river more space. During periods of high water, part of the flow would be diverted through the new channels, reducing flow velocities in the main channel and helping prevent riverbed erosion. At the same time, the main channel would be narrowed somewhat to help maintain water levels during low-flow conditions, benefiting navigation and ecology.