Urmond, The Netherlands

Urmond used to be a mooring place for shipping on the Meuse, there is still "the Schippershuis" with a beautiful façade in the style of the Maasland Renaissance and the unreliable rain river is still frighteningly close. The Meuse has long ceased to be a natural rain river, but fortunately that is about to change because in Limburg the Grensmaas is allowed to run its course again. The river is now located in a deep bed that was mainly created by years of gravel extraction. Instead of damming the water even more, the people of Limburg want to give nature more freedom. That is why the tight straitjacket of the rain river will be opened up in the future. If there is little rain in summer, the water level drops considerably. But when the heavens open in France and the Belgian Ardennes, the river swells. The flowing water moves everything that is loose and stuck at great speed, gravel, clay, sand, even trees it drags over great distances. During high tide, large parts of the banks are calved. The sand and gravel that is released during this process is later deposited by the water. This creates huge sand and gravel plains. The solution was to deepen and widen the streambed, allowing more water to flow through the river. But the province does not want to make the stream tank any bigger and has therefore opted for sloping banks. Within this riverbed, the Meuse will be allowed to determine its own course in the future. This will create a dynamic landscape, a bed that is wide and deep with slow-moving water and shallows with a fast-flowing river. The landscape will change, as swamps will emerge and riparian forests will spontaneously develop on the banks. So keep a close eye on the Grensmaas in the coming years, a lot is going to change.

Waypoint