‘Land of Water’ is one of the most important world heritage themes in the Netherlands. ICOMOS-Netherlands together with the Centre for Global Heritage and Development adopted this theme as its main focus from 2013 onwards. An important reason for this adoption was the increasing challenge water poses to (world) heritage sites worldwide, due to climate change. Awareness raising is an important step in protecting deltas and their historic values. The role and position of heritage can play an inspiring role in this awareness raising process. We are now working on the handover of this theme to an International Scientific Committee to be established.