Flanders Water Extraction Ban Monitor (Captatieverbod)

Get the current Flemish surface-water extraction ban status for every monitored waterway/zone — allowed or forbidden, permanent or drought-related, with validity dates — sourced directly from the Flemish Environment Agency's (VMM) official open-data service.

When should an AI agent use this?

• "Is water extraction currently forbidden from this waterway in the Antwerpen province?"
• "Which zones in Vlaams-Brabant currently have an active extraction ban?"
• "Give me all Flemish extraction zones with a permanent (year-round) ban."
• "How many extraction zones province-wide are currently restricted vs. allowed?"
• "Since when has this specific zone's extraction ban been active?"

What this Actor does

• Fetches every extraction zone from VMM's official ArcGIS open-data service (no scraping, no authentication needed).
• Returns each zone's current status (forbidden/allowed/unknown), whether the ban is permanent (year-round, ecologically vulnerable waterway) or temporary (drought-related), and its validity dates.
• Supports filtering by province and by a free-text search term on the zone/waterway name.
• Automatically paginates the underlying service so the full dataset (~900 zones) is always covered, even if the province adds more zones in the future.
• The output includes the source edit timestamp (bronDatum) for every zone, so users can verify how recent the status is and detect rapid changes without relying solely on the run date.

Input

Field	Type	Description
provincies	string[]	Filter by province name (e.g. "Antwerpen") or code (e.g. "ANT"), case-insensitive. Default: all 5 provinces.
onlyVerboden	boolean	Only return zones currently under an extraction ban. Default false.
zoekterm	string	Only return zones whose name/sub-basin contains this text (case-insensitive).
maxResults	integer	Maximum number of records to return (1-2000). Default 50, which keeps a first run inexpensive; raise it (e.g. 1000) for full Flanders-wide coverage.

Output

One flat JSON record per extraction zone:

{
  "land": "BE",
  "regio": "Antwerpen",
  "provincieCode": "ANT",
  "zone": "KANAAL DESSEL-SCHOTEN",
  "code": "ANT-4",
  "bekken": 10,
  "deelbekken": "10-06",
  "onttrekkingsverbodStatus": "volledig",
  "adviesTekst": "Geen advies",
  "permanentVerbod": false,
  "verbodStartDatum": "2026-07-16T22:00:00.000Z",
  "verbodEindDatum": null,
  "bronDatum": "2026-07-18T18:28:12.000Z",
  "bronUrl": "https://inspirepub.waterinfo.be/arcgis/...",
  "datumOpgehaald": "2026-07-19T08:00:00.000Z"
}

Use cases

• Agricultural/irrigation planning for farms drawing water from Flemish waterways.
• Advisory/legal support for clients holding a water extraction permit.
• Insurance/reinsurance risk screening for Belgian agricultural portfolios.
• Feeding a scheduled monitoring pipeline that alerts when a specific zone's ban status changes.

Pricing

This Actor uses Apify's Pay-Per-Event (PPE) pricing model.

• Actor Start: $0.00005 (Apify default)
• zone-record: $0.004 per delivered zone record
• captatieverbod-signaal: $0.015 per zone record currently under an active extraction ban

With the default maxResults of 50, a first run delivers at most 50 zone records (plus the ban signal for each active ban), typically under $1. Raise maxResults for full Flanders-wide coverage.

Legal

Data sourced exclusively from the Flemish Environment Agency's (VMM) official public open-data service (inspirepub.waterinfo.be). No personal data is processed. This Actor reports the latest officially published extraction ban status; it does not provide legal advice or predict future bans.

Limitations and scope

• Flanders (Vlaanderen) only; Wallonia and Brussels are not covered because comparable structured APIs are not available.
• The actor reflects the latest official VMM status, not a prediction of future bans.
• The source service is updated by VMM; rapid status changes are visible through the bronDatum field but may not be instant.
• No scraping or authentication is required; the actor relies entirely on VMM's official public ArcGIS REST endpoint.

Related Actors

This actor is part of the drought/water-restriction cluster. Consider pairing it with:

• nl-onttrekkingsverbod-monitor — Dutch waterboard-level extraction bans with the same legal framework (verdringingsreeks).
• fr-secheresse-monitor — French drought/water-restriction status per zone (VigiEau API), useful for cross-border river-basin analysis.
• es-sequia-monitor — Spanish drought indicators (MITECO), comparable in structure but different regulatory context.
• eu-edo-droogtemonitor — EU-wide Combined Drought Indicator (Copernicus EDO) for a broader European drought context.

FAQ

Q: Does this cover Wallonia or Brussels? A: No — Flanders (Vlaanderen) is the only Belgian region with a comparable structured, machine-readable status source. Wallonia handles extraction restrictions via ad-hoc provincial governor decrees (PDF/press releases) without a central API, and Brussels has essentially no local extraction restrictions.

Q: What does "permanent" mean? A: A permanent ban applies year-round to ecologically vulnerable waterways, independent of the current drought situation. A non-permanent (temporary) ban is drought-related and has a start date (and sometimes an end date).

Q: How current is this data? A: The source service is updated by VMM as decisions change; each record includes the underlying edit timestamp (bronDatum).

Q: Why can adviesTekst say "Onttrekking toestaan" while the status is "volledig"? A: onttrekkingsverbodStatus comes from the source's status field (the actual ban flag), while adviesTekst mirrors the separate advies field from the same source. The two are reported as-is and can differ; use onttrekkingsverbodStatus for the operational ban state.

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Zoekwoorden: captatieverbod Vlaanderen, onttrekkingsverbod, wateronttrekking verboden, VMM, droogte Vlaanderen, waterloop onttrekking.

Keywords

belgium, flanders, drought, water-extraction, captatieverbod, vmm, agriculture-risk, insurance-risk, climate-risk, open-data, water-scarcity

Changelog

0.1.7

• Lowered the default maxResults from 1000 to 50 so a first run stays inexpensive; raise it for full Flanders-wide coverage.
• Hardened the source fetch: 60-second timeout and a clear error when VMM returns HTTP 200 without a features array.
• Invalid source timestamps now yield null instead of crashing; added regression tests.
• Clarified in the FAQ how the source's status and advies fields relate.

0.1.0

• Initial release: extraction ban status per zone/waterway for all Flemish provinces, from the VMM ArcGIS open-data service.