Groundwater in low lying areas in the Netherlands is often brackish with thin rainwater lenses of one or several meters thickness. Agriculture in these fertile areas therefore has limited access to fresh water. To improve the fresh water availability on arable farms, innovations in drainage and storage systems are piloted. On the island of Schouwen-Duiveland saline seepage fluxes are high giving little room for the storage of fresh water in the groundwater system. Two types of innovative tile drainage were tested. In one pilot, a controlled drainage system was installed where drain pipes are placed 40 cm deeper in the soil. This way, extra fresh water could be stored by pushing the fresh-salt interface downward and thickening the rainwater lens. At two other locations, double drainage was installed with both a shallow (80 cm b.g.l.) and deep (130 cm b.g.l.) drainage system. The deeper system was used to discharge saline seepage while the shallow system was used to harvest excess fresh water. Modelling and monitoring results show that about 50% of infiltrated rain water could be harvested and reused for irrigation during the growing season. Discharge water from subsurface drainage systems is increasingly seen as a source of fresh water in brackish/saline environments in the Netherlands. In another pilot in a polder in the north of the country drainage water is collected, pre-treated to remove contaminants and then gravitationally infiltrated through a well in a subsurface sandy layer (19-25 m b.g.l.). During the growing season this water is pumped up and used for drip-irrigation. The whole system is monitored using piezometers, EC- and flowmeters, and results are brought together in a dashboard. Use of drain water creates the potential for a circular water system at arable farms where both fresh water and nutrients are collected, stored and reused.