Water is the connection - Ties van der Hoeven at Cities Leading Food Production
Ties van der Hoeven - The Weather Maker
During VIV MEA 2025 in Abu Dhabi, @Ties van der Hoeven of The Weather Makers contributed to the inspiration seminar and roundtables with astonishing presentations and discussions on the restoration of water cycles and regeneration of natural systems and landscapes.
We are happy to announce that Ties will also be one of the keynote speakers at Cities Leading Food Production during VIV Europe 2026 in Utrecht in June.
Ties:“I’m a morphologist by training. About nine years ago, this image completely changed my life. I was working for dredging companies in Dubai, Qatar, and across the Middle East, then for a Dutch firm in Belgium. My sister, who worked with Greenpeace, challenged me: “Ties, if you’re going to work with contractors, try to regreen the dredging industry from the inside.” I had no idea what would lay ahead.”
“Hiking in Alaska, local communities taught me that rain is liquid sunshine—water harvesting solar energy to spark regeneration. So how do we transform agriculture and landscapes? The answer is water, not producing the same food with less, but understanding the water cycle. Seawater or freshwater evaporates, taking more energy and cooling faster, condensing quicker in natural systems. Nature uses water as a battery; that’s how evolution happened.”
“Water and the water cycle could become the foundation for a regenerative society. We thought ecological regeneration needed too much water, especially in places like Saudi Arabia where re-greening to restore rain takes too long and overwhelms people with impossible tasks. But what if we make it rain to support those regeneration efforts? That’s what we’re doing now—developing technologies using seawater and freshwater at the right timing to boost the water cycle.”
“Water connects entire communities. When I understood this, it felt like evolution: we’re stuck in a system where everyone fights for themselves, but water works the opposite way. Water is the connection itself. With simple low‑tech techniques, we add water vapor—no chemicals—just to spark life, deep convection, and restore the water cycle, the only truly sustainable source beneath ecological function.”
