As temperatures in the Netherlands soared during the 2026 heatwave, authorities faced an urgent challenge: keeping the country's critical steel bridges functioning. Rijkswaterstaat, the national infrastructure agency, launched emergency cooling operations on five basic bridges in Groningen and Friesland to limit heat-related expansion and keep moving parts from jamming.
Steel bridges are engineered to flex and move as temperatures change. During extreme heat, expansion can affect moving components and expansion joints, potentially preventing a bridge from opening or closing and disrupting road and river traffic. Maintenance teams have used targeted water cooling, spraying vulnerable sections from boats or running temporary pump systems on site.
Targeted Cooling Operations
The bridges under active cooling include Driebondsbrug in Groningen, where a specially equipped vessel cools the structure from below without wetting the high-speed road surface above. Dorkwerd and Aduard in Groningen, along with Spannenburg in Friesland, rely on temporary cooling devices. Schuilenburg, also in Friesland, has a built-in system designed for emergencies of this kind.
Local authorities in Groningen have reported that several bridges are being kept wet throughout the day to limit steel expansion. If heat affects their operating mechanisms, shipping and river navigation are particularly vulnerable to disruption. Similar heatwaves in recent years have also led to bridge closures and traffic delays elsewhere in Europe.
Heatwave Puts Infrastructure to the Test
The Netherlands recorded an air temperature of 39.4°C at Ell on 26 June 2026, the day the country issued its first red heat warning. The KNMI classified the summer as the warmest since measurements began in 1901, with a mean temperature of 19.3°C. Pavement temperatures exceeded 50°C in some areas, showing how surfaces exposed to direct sunlight can heat more intensely than air-temperature readings alone suggest.
The heat also had a severe public-health impact. The RIVM reported more than 900 excess deaths from 22 June to 5 July. A separate estimate put heat-related deaths at about 1,329 across 47 Dutch cities with a combined population of nearly 7.9 million. The estimates cover different periods and use different methods, so they are not duplicate counts. NRC described the late-June episode as part of a broader European heatwave associated with exceptionally high heat mortality in Western Europe.
These conditions are prompting a rethink of how transport infrastructure is designed and maintained in regions where such temperatures were once rare. Expansion joints and filler materials, along with mechanical systems, may need to withstand hotter, longer summers. The Dutch experience echoes broader European efforts to adapt infrastructure to a changing climate, including Switzerland's underground tunnel network, which is transforming freight transport across the continent, a development explored in detail in this report on Europe's developing transport solutions.
In The Future
For now, emergency cooling remains a stopgap. As extreme heat becomes more frequent, the Netherlands and its neighbors face growing pressure to future-proof infrastructure. The ability to recover of Europe's bridges and roads will depend on how well maintenance and operating practices, as well as design, respond to a warming climate.
