Land is our capital; through the sunlight that falls on it, it captures the necessary annual energy and mass of resources. But closely related to this is water, which is essential for that land-sun system to function and is the most important source for humans after air/oxygen. It should be noted that rain is also a result of the sun’s driving mechanism, and thus is part of that land-sun relationship. Rainwater is then distributed throughout the area via rivers. Therefore, land is important, especially the fact that countries can control their own land, and subsequently, that they can control their water.
This leads me to often wonder where, in relation to our water, our borders come from—specifically, the national borders. This often seems illogical, especially when we look at water and rivers.
A river sometimes flows through different countries and even in some places forms the border between two nations. I can understand this, in a sense that this has been fought over, with often a river as an impassable boundary: a status quo was agreed upon with a river in between. But this, of course, creates a built in license/guarantee for future conflict: if one country wants something from the river and the other does not. Or in cases of pollution. Meanwhile, a river, the water, is a primary necessity for life, essential for everything rest to function in parallel. Thus, you want to protect and manage it. But that cannot happen if the river is governed by man countries. if that river flows through six countries, or forming a border between two of them.
Cooperation does not always happen easily. For instance, it took a long time for the Maas upstream, where it enters the Netherlands, to become cleaner, as France and Belgium were discharging waste into it, which then flowed into the Netherlands. This could have been much easier if the entire Maas watershed belonged to one country. Then everyone would be jointly responsible for their own mess. Under Philip the Good and Charles the Bold, it almost succeeded—to create a ‘Burgundian Maasland’, as the Maas originates there. Even possibly a Maas-Scheldt land!
Currently it flows several countries and acts as the border between the Dutch and Belgium provinces of Limburg, east and west Limburg . Fortunately, things are going (more or less) well between those two provinces now (though they still can’t establish a tram/train connection between the East and West Limburg capitals of Hasselt and Maastricht); but it’s not guaranteed that it will remain that way…
Besides pollution, you also have to consider flooding: if there is no water retention upstream, a mass of water flows downstream with all the consequences that follow. We have already repeatedly experienced the potential effects of this in Europe in recent years.
Another very visible example of these possible tensions is between, for example, Egypt and the upstream countries building dams and such. Egypt is 100% dependent on the Nile. If less water flows through there, or if there are no more floods to fertilize the land along the Nile, there will be a huge problem.
So, with an eye to the future—when there is too much water at once or a severe drought threatens—you want to prevent countries from coming into conflict over water. This would mean organizing countries around complete river basins.
Lets have a look at the current map of Europe, and see how it is organized. The map shows the boundaries of water basins (watersheds), in larger and smaller sections (red and yellow divisions), it is how the countries could and should ideally be bordered and managed naturally. What stands out? France is reasonably well organized around ‘its’ rivers, except for the Rhône, which still receives some water from Switzerland, but since there is no heavy industry there, that seems to be going well. Spain and Portugal together also form a unit, which is not surprising as a peninsula. Italy is also fairly correct. The Scandinavian countries are well organized, as is England, of course.
But in the middle from west to the East, things are messy: The Netherlands and Belgium do not match at all, both because rivers come from other countries and partly form the border. Western Germany is entangled with Switzerland via the Rhine and would be better off merging. And yes, then the Eiffel region would also be included, finally putting an end to the exchange of this Rhine region between France and Germany there. France then has the Rhône and Seine-Loire-Garonne basins well under control.
In Central Europe, the Balkans are also problematic. The Danube basin is extremely large and contains numerous countries, next to and behind each other, which is not convenient and a potential source of internal problems. Even more troubling is the situation with the Baltic states: they get part of their water from Belarus and Russia…
Farther away, there may be bigger problems, such as the drainage from the Himalayas; the major rivers ‘originate’ in the mountains and flow through several countries to all end in the Bangladeshi delta. You can sense that this cannot continue to go well with those melting glaciers. And further east flows the Mekong, which also passes through many countries.
Why is this relevant now? If the world economy were to collapse, which is not unthinkable given current developments, each country would largely have to fend for itself. And you can already identify potential conflict areas. Access to one’s own water would be one of the first requirements for survival. Thus, some preparatory restructuring would be appropriate, starting right here in the Netherlands: So let’s go ahead and donate Northern Holland to Germany… and create the Rhineland. Maybe add a bit of Elbe-Weserland as well.
Te Dutch provinces of Brabant and Limburg would then join Belgium and establish a separate Maas and Scheldt land. We would also claim a small piece of current France, and then we could call it ‘Burgundy’ again. After all, the roots were there, and we are already called Burgundians, so it’s not entirely illogical. (See the second map, from Lothringen up, but without the northern Rhine part) The Balkans remain a problem; it has been attempted several times to get it organized around the Danube, but that always ended in a failure. And the Baltic region as well, remains very tricky.
Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that—that here in the Netherlands water doesn’t lead to our downfall in more ways than one. It’s already sometimes all hands on deck to pump out water whatever we can. We are therefore doomed to remain friends with Belgium and Germany, with the Rhineland and Maas and Scheldt lands; otherwise, we could easily be the unlucky ones at the end of the chain. But well, I am at least in favor of merging… as Rhineland and Burgundy land, the more since the water is now also coming from the other side, and we could use some backup land……
