Water week

Water Week is an initiative by the Flemish Environment Agency to raise awareness of water management. On their website, you’ll find over a hundred activities across Flanders for all ages.

Heritage and water

We too are keen to put water management in the spotlight. Be sure to take a look at our projects on grassland irrigation and watermill landscapes on our website, as well as our videos and podcasts.

Intangible heritage can serve as a lever for tackling major challenges, such as water management, the conservation of biodiversity and soil fertility. Through the Water & Land project, we aim to foster international cooperation and exchange between heritage communities, managers and experts.

With ‘Witteren: rich waters, undulating grass’, we succeeded, together with several other countries, in having traditional grassland irrigation included on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Every year, we can count on numerous volunteers to carry out traditional grassland irrigation. Together with the Centre for Agricultural History (CAG), the witteraars will soon be meeting again to further expand their dossier for the Flanders Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Water mills and watermill landscapes have also been actively working on their heritage. The watermill craft will soon appear on the list of the Great Collection of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Flanders.

So, during Water Week, don’t forget to take a look at these heritage communities!