We are making the Netherlands wetter to protect ourselves against climate change. But what does this mean for mosquitoes, birds and viruses? And what about West Nile virus, which claimed a life this week?

For several decades, the Netherlands has been redesigning its rural areas and cities to make them better able to cope with extreme rainfall, drought and heat. This means creating more space for rivers, developing large areas of new wetland nature, and introducing features such as ponds and rain gardens in cities – as well as innovative water storage systems beneath roads, car parks and buildings.

“All of these can potentially provide breeding grounds for mosquitoes,” says Koopmans. “At the Pandemic and Disaster Preparedness Center, we have set up a large research project to investigate what these developments mean for the risk of mosquito-borne infectious diseases.”

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Source: NRC
Date: 27 August 2026

This news article discusses the Flooding the Eendragtspolder experiment, which is part of the PDPC research project Frontrunner 1: Climate change and vectorborne virus outbreaks.