Well-being 'here and now': environment

Environment concerns the quality of the environment in which people live. A healthy living environment is characterised by clean air, clean water, sufficient and a healthy natural environment of sufficient quality and biodiversity, and soil that is free from pollution.

• Biodiversity is declining in most types of habitat.
• The air contains less particulate matter and substances that cause acidification.
• Many people still experience dirt, pollution and other environmental problems, relative to previous years.

Colour codes and notes to the dashboards in the Monitor of Well-being

The area of managed nature reserves has been growing, albeit very gradually. The Netherlands Nature Network (NNN) includes all existing and planned terrestrial nature reserves in the Netherlands. In 2024, NNN areas accounted for 21.2 percent of the country’s total land area. However, the amount of green-blue space  (excluding regular agriculture) is decreasing (SDG15), as is biodiversity in most cases. Populations of urban birds, farmland birds and Dutch terrestrial fauna are all trending downwards (SDG11.2, SDG15). Only in species living in freshwater and marshlands do growing populations outnumber declining ones, despite the fact that the chemical and biological quality of natural water is inadequate almost everywhere (SDG 6). The water quality of inland water is also trending downwards for the first time: 72.6 percent of these waters were classified as ‘excellent’ in 2018, compared to 70.4 percent in 2025.

Air quality is improving. In 2024, the weighted annual average concentration of particulate matter (PM2.5) in urban areas had halved compared to 2011. Emissions of substances that cause acidification (sulphur oxides, nitrogen oxides and ammonia) have also been falling for years (SDG11.2). This is also reflected in nitrogen deposition in terrestrial nature (i.e. the proportion of terrestrial nature where the nitrogen limit is exceeded), which is declining steadily. This decrease has been fairly small, from just over 71 percent in 2018 to almost 70 percent in 2023.

Recently, the percentage of the population (aged 16 and over) affected by dirt and pollution or other environmental problems has declined again after a significant increase, falling to 15.9 percent in 2025. This figure remains relatively high, having fluctuated between 13 and 16 percent for a long time. Noise pollution caused by neighbours or traffic is no longer increasing (SDG11.2). The proportion of households experiencing noise pollution was almost 27 percent in 2025. Between 2006 and 2010, this percentage dropped from 33 to 24 percent, before gradually increasing again in subsequent years. The share in 2023 was high compared to other EU countries.