The Netherlands Center for River Research (NCR) in its first 10 years of existence has focused its activities on flooding. Climate change might cause that droughts will become as important as or even more important than floods. The dry year 2003 in Europe has shown the huge socio-economic impacts of droughts. New concepts are emerging on how to deal with droughts. This key-note addresses the issues of droughts and scarcity and makes a plea to include more drought research in NCR