These days, I study oxygen stress in aquatic contexts. In this one specialized context that I looked at, oxygen stress means fish gasping at the surface during algae blooms, suffocating as algae blooms, their death and the rot consumes all the dissolved oxygen in the water. I have seen it a few times as recent as of august of this year. In my grad school, I studied it in terms of cells in culture also gasping for air. So the idea that plants themselves, the very organisms we associate with producing oxygen could suffer from oxygen deprivation seemed almost paradoxical.
Then I started exploring the Klimaateffectatlas . It has an interactive tool to make comparisons between the two years, current and 2050. Now I have a newer understanding about the problem.
Current:
2050:
The Paradox of Drowning Plants#
Here’s something that took me a moment to wrap my head around: plants need oxygen too. Not just for photosynthesis for cellular respiration in their roots. Every root cell requires oxygen to convert sugars into energy, just like our own cells do. And here’s the crucial detail: while leaves float in an atmosphere that’s 21% oxygen, roots are buried in soil where oxygen must diffuse through tiny air pockets between soil particles. When water saturates the soil, it fills those air pockets. The oxygen supply to roots doesn’t just slow down, it essentially stops. Oxygen diffuses roughly 10,000 times slower through water than through air. Within hours, roots can shift from normal aerobic respiration to a desperate state of hypoxia (low oxygen) or even anoxia (complete oxygen absence). This is very quick.
The result? Plant cells begin to suffocate. They switch to inefficient anaerobic fermentation, producing toxic byproducts like ethanol and lactic acid. Root function deteriorates, nutrient uptake fails, and the plant essentially begins dying from the bottom up. You can notice that in water logged areas in the forest due to some change in the environment.
What the Climate Effect Atlas Reveals#
The Dutch Climate Effect Atlas provides two scenarios that paint a sobering picture of oxygen stress across the Netherlands: the current situation (2025) and projections for 2050. Comparing these maps is genuinely unsettling. The areas showing moderate to severe oxygen stress in 2025 expand dramatically by 2050. This isn’t speculation, it’s modelling based on changing precipitation patterns, rising groundwater tables, and increasingly frequent extreme weather events. The Netherlands, already one of the lowest-lying countries on Earth, faces an amplification of conditions that already challenge plant survival.
What struck me most was the intensification around the IJsselmeer and Markermeer regions. These massive freshwater lakes in the heart of the Netherlands are surrounded by reclaimed polders land that sits below sea level, kept dry only through constant pumping and careful water management. By 2050, the adjacent agricultural lands show significantly increased oxygen stress risk. The very engineering that made this land habitable is now being tested by climate change.
The Mechanism: Why This Is Happening#
The mechanism behind this increasing stress is multifaceted, but here are four reasons behind the mechanism:
Rising groundwater tables: As sea levels rise and precipitation patterns shift toward more intense rainfall events, groundwater levels throughout the low-lying Netherlands are climbing. Higher groundwater means less soil depth available for root oxygen exchange.
Changing precipitation patterns: Climate models predict that by 2050, the Netherlands will experience both more intense rainfall events and different seasonal distribution of precipitation. Heavy downpours saturate soils faster than drainage systems can cope, creating temporary but damaging waterlogging events.
Compound stress effects: Research shows that oxygen stress rarely acts alone. Plants facing waterlogged conditions simultaneously experience nutrient deficiency (roots can’t uptake nutrients in anoxic conditions), salt stress (particularly relevant in coastal areas), and increased susceptibility to root pathogens that thrive in waterlogged soils.
Seasonal timing: Perhaps most insidiously, the timing of waterlogging events matters enormously. Spring waterlogging during germination can devastate crops. Late-season events during grain filling can slash yields. Climate change is shifting these events into previously “safe” growing periods.
The Parallel to Aquatic Oxygen Stress#
I mentioned my background in thinking about aquatic oxygen stress, and there’s actually a connection worth exploring here. As climate change intensifies, we’re seeing stronger and more frequent algae blooms in coastal waters and freshwater systems. These blooms, driven by warmer temperatures and nutrient runoff, create massive oxygen-depleted dead zones when the algae die and decompose. But the story doesn’t end at the waterline. The same conditions driving aquatic oxygen stress, excess nutrients, warming temperatures, altered precipitation are simultaneously creating terrestrial oxygen stress through waterlogging. The climate system doesn’t respect our categories of “aquatic” and “terrestrial” problems. It’s all connected. The nutrients washing off waterlogged fields contribute to downstream algal blooms. The sea level rise that threatens coastal flooding also raises groundwater tables inland. The intense rainfall events that cause flash flooding in rivers create waterlogging in fields. We’re witnessing a systemic transformation of how water moves through the Dutch landscape.
Adaptation Strategies#
So what can be done? Research points to several approaches, though none are simple and very complex subjects that I fully don’t understand yet. But a lot of it are apparently being actively integrated into the system by the government:
- Improved drainage infrastructure
- Soil health management
- Water storage solutions
- Crop selection and breeding
- Nature-based solutions
- Landscape-scale planning
The Bigger Picture#
Standing back from the technical details, what the Klimaateffectatlas reveals is something profound about climate change adaptation. The Netherlands has, for centuries, been the world’s master of water management. The Dutch literally created much of their country from the sea. That engineering expertise is a source of justified pride. But The scale of intervention required, the speed of change needed, the uncertainty in future conditions these challenges exceed historical experience. The oxygen stress maps are just one small window into this larger transformation. What fascinates me, in a troubling way, is how this connects terrestrial and aquatic systems. The same global changes that suffocate fish in algae-choked waters are suffocating plant roots in waterlogged soils. The biosphere is interconnected, and climate change tugs on every thread simultaneously. For the Netherlands and for all low-lying agricultural regions facing similar challenges, the coming decades will test the limits of adaptation. The question isn’t whether change will come, but whether the response can keep pace.
The Climate Effect Atlas presents scenarios that diverge significantly by 2050. What’s frustrating is that the atlas doesn’t provide extensive detail on what drives the differences or the full range of possibilities. But what we can see is striking enough. The scenarios suggest that without significant intervention, oxygen stress will affect substantially larger areas of Dutch agricultural land. The polders around the great lakes, the clay soils of the river regions, and even historically well-drained sandy soils face increased risk. What the scenarios don’t fully capture and what deserves more research is the economic and social cascade that follows. Dutch agriculture is highly specialised and intensely productive. Flower bulbs, dairy, greenhouse vegetables, these industries depend on reliable growing conditions. Oxygen stress doesn’t just reduce yields; it can eliminate the possibility of growing certain crops altogether.