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DELTARES, FEBRUARY 2016
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If we let salinisation continue, more than
200 thousand hectares of farmland will be
lost for freshwater farming in the Netherlands
alone in the next hundred years. Particularly
in the northern part of North Holland, the
Haarlemmermeer polder and the Southwest
Delta, the soil will get saltier rapidly if no action
is taken, making traditional crops that need
fresh water much more dicult to grow.
Land is subsiding in many coastal areas
throughout the world, such as the Mekong,
Mississippi and Ganges-Brahmaputra
deltas. This will eventually lead to more
salinisation of the groundwater system,
and the Netherlands is no exception.
As well as studying potatoes, scientists fromWageningen
are also investigating other salt-tolerant crops such as sea
kale, barley, common scurvygrass, wild rocket and scentless
mayweed. The most successful of these crops is sea kale
(
crambe maritima
), and it is already on the menus of a
number of top restaurants.
In two places in the Netherlands - Zeeland and the
island of Texel - potatoes are being developed that can
cope withmore salt water than usual. Meijer Potato, an
international supplier of seed potatoes from Zeeland,
is producing potatoes can manage water that is quite
brackish. This is important because the amount of
brackish ground around the world is on the increase.
And so is the market for these 'salt-tolerant' potatoes.
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For more information:
gualbert.oudeessink@deltares.nl8
Deltares is mapping out groundwater
resources in large deltas such as those
of the Netherlands, the Mekong and
the Nile, and we are working on ways of
protecting water resources better from
salinisation.
IMAGE: SCIENCEPHOTO.COM
eu s e (Pomme de t e r r e ).
ub e r o sum L .
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