Door een lekkage stond water naast de meterkast.

In this sentence, door introduces the cause:

Door een lekkage = Because of a leak / Due to a leak

So door can mean different things depending on context:

• door het raam = through the window
• door de regen = because of the rain

Here it clearly expresses cause, not movement.

Dutch nouns have grammatical gender and take either de or het as their definite article.

• lekkage is a de-word → de lekkage
• meterkast is also a de-word → de meterkast

When the noun is indefinite, both de-words and het-words usually take een:

• een lekkage = a leak
• een meterkast = a meter cupboard

So in the sentence:

• een lekkage = an unspecified leak
• de meterkast = the meter cupboard being referred to

This is because Dutch uses verb-second word order in main clauses.

The sentence begins with the adverbial phrase:

Door een lekkage

When something other than the subject comes first, the finite verb must come next:

• Door een lekkage stond water naast de meterkast.

So the order is:

1. Door een lekkage (cause)
2. stond (finite verb)
3. water (subject)
4. naast de meterkast (location)

If you started with the subject instead, you would get:

• Water stond naast de meterkast door een lekkage.

That is grammatically possible, but less natural in many contexts.

Dutch often uses staan, liggen, and zitten in places where English simply uses to be.

Here, er stond water or water stond means that water was present somewhere, usually as a pool or amount of standing water on a surface.

So:

• Er stond water op de vloer. = There was water on the floor.
• literally: Water stood on the floor

This is very natural Dutch. You would not normally translate it literally into natural English, but in Dutch staan is the normal verb here.

Because Dutch often chooses a more specific position verb instead of the general verb zijn (to be).

Compare:

• Er was water op de vloer. = There was water on the floor.
• Er stond water op de vloer. = There was water standing on the floor.

Both can be understood, but stond is more idiomatic when talking about water collected somewhere, especially on a floor.

So stond gives a more physical, spatial sense.

Naast means next to or beside.

So:

• naast de meterkast = next to the meter cupboard

A meterkast is the cupboard or cabinet where utility meters and often electrical connections are located, especially in Dutch and Belgian homes.

It tells you the location of the water.

So the sentence has these main parts:

• Door een lekkage = cause
• stond water = what was there
• naast de meterkast = where it was

It is a prepositional phrase:

• naast = preposition
• de meterkast = object of the preposition

Yes, absolutely. That is a very common alternative.

• Er stond water naast de meterkast. = There was water next to the meter cupboard.
• Door een lekkage stond water naast de meterkast. = Because of a leak, there was water next to the meter cupboard.

Using er is very common in Dutch when introducing the existence of something somewhere.

The version with Door een lekkage at the front emphasizes the cause.

They are related, but not always identical in use.

• het lek = the leak itself, the point or opening where something leaks
• de lekkage = the leakage, the leaking problem, or the water damage situation

In many everyday contexts, they overlap:

• Er is een lek. = There is a leak.
• Er is een lekkage. = There is a leak / There is leakage.

But lekkage can sound a bit more formal or a bit more like the incident/problem as a whole.

In Dutch, mass nouns like water often appear without an article when talking about the substance in a general or indefinite way.

So:

• Er stond water op de vloer. = There was water on the floor.

You are not talking about a specific, previously mentioned the water, just some water.

You can use het water when the water is specific:

• Het water was vies. = The water was dirty.

But in this sentence, article-less water is the normal choice.