Land reclamation in the Netherlands

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William II of Holland grants the charter to the Water Board of Rhineland in the 13th century. Count William II grants the charter to the Water Board of Rhineland, by Caesar van Everdingen and Pieter Jansz Post.jpg
William II of Holland grants the charter to the Water Board of Rhineland in the 13th century.

Land reclamation in the Netherlands has a long history. As early as in the 14th century, the first reclaimed land had been settled. [1] Much of the modern land reclamation has been done as a part of the Zuiderzee Works since 1919. [2]

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According to a 2007 study by Calvin College Michigan (USA), about 65% of the country would be under water at high tide if it were not for the existence and the country's use of dikes, dunes and pumps. [3] Land reclamation in the 20th century added an additional 1,650 square kilometres (640 sq mi) to the country's land area. [3] Of the country's population, 21% lives in the 26% of the land located below mean sea level. [4]

History and origins of land reclamation in the Netherlands

The Netherlands has a coastline that is constantly changing with erosion caused by wind and water. The Dutch people inhabiting the region had at first built primitive dikes to protect their settlements from the sea. [1] In the northern parts of the Netherlands sea levels fell exposing new land at a rate of 5–10 meters per year between 500 BC and 500 AD. This natural process was exploited to claim new agricultural lands. Discontinuous dikes were built to protect the new farms. [5]

Smaller strips of land were reclaimed by filling with sand or other types of land materials. This was usually done near urban and harbour areas since the 14th century. For instance, Amsterdam and Rotterdam were expanding in this manner. [5]

The development of using windmills for pumping water in the 15th century allowed the draining of significant bodies of water. This resulted in the creation of polders. [1] The first steam powered water mill was put to use in 1787. [5]

Polders

A satellite image of Flevopolder in Flevoland Satellite image of Flevopolder, Netherlands (5.48E 52.43N).png
A satellite image of Flevopolder in Flevoland

The Netherlands is frequently associated with polders, as its engineers became noted for developing techniques to drain wetlands and make them usable for agriculture and other development. This is illustrated by the saying: "God created the world, but the Dutch created the Netherlands" [6]

The Dutch have a long history of reclamation of marshes and fenland, resulting in some 3,000 polders [7] nationwide. About half the total surface area of polders in north-west Europe is in the Netherlands. The first embankments in Europe were constructed in Roman times. The first polders were constructed in the 11th century.

As a result of flooding disasters, water boards called waterschap (when situated more inland) or hoogheemraadschap (near the sea, mainly used in the Holland region) [8] were set up to maintain the integrity of the water defences around polders, maintain the waterways inside a polder, and control the various water levels inside and outside the polder. Water boards hold separate elections, levy taxes, and function independently from other government bodies. Their function is basically unchanged even today. As such they are the oldest democratic institution in the country. The necessary cooperation among all ranks to maintain polder integrity gave its name to the Dutch version of third way politics—the Polder Model .

The 1953 flood disaster prompted a new approach to the design of dikes and other water-retaining structures, based on an acceptable probability of overflowing. Risk is defined as the product of probability and consequences. The potential damage in lives, property and rebuilding costs is compared to the potential cost of water defences. From these calculations follows an acceptable flood risk from the sea at one in 4,000–10,000 years, while it is one in 100–2,500 years for a river flood. The particular established policy guides the Dutch government to improve flood defences as new data on threat levels becomes available.

List of polders

Some famous Dutch polders and the year they were laid dry are:

Proposed developments

The Markerwaard is the name of a proposed polder in the IJsselmeer that was never built. The construction of Markerwaard would have resulted in the near-total reclamation of the Markermeer. Markerwaard was expected to be finished in 1978. [9]

In 1941 work for this project started; about 2 km of a dike north of Marken was built. It would have had an area of nearly 600 km2. But the German occupation stopped the project. Later, it was decided that the Flevopolder should have priority. In 1957, the island of Marken was connected to the mainland of the province North-Holland. In 1976 the dam Houtribdijk connecting Enkhuizen and Lelystad was completed, a necessary step in the construction of Markerwaard, the dikes for the bordering lakes were still to be completed. However the entire project became mired in political and environmental controversy. In the late 1970s, the project was revised down leaving wide bordering lakes between the polder and North Holland. Marken would remain a peninsula, unlike on the original project. At this stage, the Markerwaard would have had an area of 410 km2.

Finally, in 2003, it was decided not to build this polder. [10]

Markerwaard 1965.jpg
1965 plan for a polder
Markerwaard 1981.jpg
1981 plan for a polder
Marker wadden.jpg
The Marker-Wadden project
Different proposals for land reclamation at Markermeer

Opposing views

In the 1960s, the Vereniging tot Behoud van de Waddenzee organization successfully campaigned against plans to reclaim part of the Wadden Sea. [11]

In 1974, the Association for the Preservation of the IJssel Lake (also known as the Vereniging tot Behoud van het IJsselmeer), one of the most vocal groups against land reclamation, published Plan Waterlely, which provided opposing viewpoints and solutions to land reclamation. [11] Among its many arguments, it said that land reclamation was no longer needed as a Dutch tradition since it was no longer needed for flood prevention, as previous reclamation projects were used for. [11] The Plan also argued that urbanization would lead to more land reclamation, which would create a never ending cycle of reclamation, and that creating newly reclaimed land would only delay the fixing of the core issues of urbanization. [11] Also, it argued that issues that were generated on "old land" should remain there, and not be expanded into newly reclaimed land. [11] Though dismissed by the Dutch government, the press generally was well receptive to the Plan. [11]

Recent history

A modern pumping station in Zoetermeer Gemaal de Leyens.jpg
A modern pumping station in Zoetermeer

In 2012, plans emerged to create the Marker Wadden, [12] a group of islands designed to establish nature reserves in the north of the Markermeer. In contrast to the Markerwaard, no human occupation is planned. The creation process began in early 2016. [13]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flevoland</span> Province of the Netherlands

Flevoland is the twelfth and youngest province of the Netherlands, established in 1986, when the southern and eastern Flevopolders, together with the Noordoostpolder, were merged into one provincial entity. It is in the centre of the country in the former Zuiderzee, which was turned into the freshwater IJsselmeer by the closure of the Afsluitdijk in 1932. Almost all of the land belonging to Flevoland was reclaimed in the 1950s and 1960s while splitting the Markermeer and Bordering lakes from the IJsselmeer. As to dry land, it is the smallest province of the Netherlands at 1,412 km2 (545 sq mi), but not gross land as that includes much of the waters of the fresh water lakes (meres) mentioned.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Polder</span> Reclaimed land

A polder is a low-lying tract of land that forms an artificial hydrological entity, enclosed by embankments known as dikes. The three types of polder are:

  1. Land reclaimed from a body of water, such as a lake or the seabed
  2. Flood plains separated from the sea or river by a dike
  3. Marshes separated from the surrounding water by a dike and subsequently drained; these are also known as koogs, especially in Germany
<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lelystad</span> City and municipality in Flevoland, Netherlands

Lelystad is a municipality and a city in the centre of the Netherlands, and it is the capital of the province of Flevoland. The city, built on reclaimed land, was founded in 1967 and was named after Cornelis Lely, who engineered the Afsluitdijk, making the reclamation possible. Lelystad is approximately 3 metres below sea level.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">IJsselmeer</span> Lake in the Netherlands

The IJsselmeer, also known as Lake IJssel in English, is a closed off inland bay in the central Netherlands bordering the provinces of Flevoland, North Holland and Friesland. It covers an area of 1,100 km2 (420 sq mi) with an average depth of 5.5 m (18 ft). The river IJssel flows into the IJsselmeer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zuiderzee</span> Former inland sea in the Netherlands, now the IJsselmeer

The Zuiderzee or Zuider Zee was a shallow bay of the North Sea in the northwest of the Netherlands, extending about 100 km inland and at most 50 km wide, with an overall depth of about 4 to 5 metres (13–16 feet) and a coastline of about 300 km. It covered 5,000 km2 (1,900 sq mi). Its name is Dutch for "southern sea", indicating that the name originates in Friesland, to the north of the Zuiderzee. In the 20th century the majority of the Zuiderzee was closed off from the North Sea by the construction of the Afsluitdijk, leaving the mouth of the inlet to become part of the Wadden Sea. The salt water inlet changed into a fresh water lake now called the IJsselmeer after the river that drains into it, and by means of drainage and polders, an area of some 1,500 km2 (580 sq mi) was reclaimed as land. This land eventually became the province of Flevoland, with a population of nearly 400,000 (2011).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zuiderzee Works</span> Land reclamation in the Netherlands

The Zuiderzee Works is a man-made system of dams and dikes, land reclamation and water drainage work, in total the largest hydraulic engineering project undertaken by the Netherlands during the twentieth century. The project involved the damming of the Zuiderzee, a large, shallow inlet of the North Sea, and the reclamation of land in the newly enclosed water using polders. Its main purposes are to improve flood protection and create additional land for agriculture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beemster</span> Former municipality in North Holland, Netherlands

Beemster is a former municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. The Beemster is the first so-called polder in the Netherlands that was reclaimed from a lake, the water being extracted from the lake by windmills. The Beemster polder was drained between 1609 and 1612. It has preserved intact its well-ordered landscape of fields, roads, canals, dykes and settlements, laid out in accordance with classical and Renaissance planning principles. A grid of canals parallels the grid of roads in the Beemster. The grids are offset: the larger feeder canals are offset by approximately one kilometer from the larger roads.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wieringermeer</span> Former municipality in North Holland, Netherlands

Wieringermeer is a former municipality and a polder in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Since 2012 Wieringermeer has been a part of the new municipality of Hollands Kroon.

<i>Afsluitdijk</i> Dam

The Afsluitdijk is a major dam and causeway in the Netherlands. It was constructed between 1927 and 1932 and runs from Den Oever in North Holland province to the village of Zurich in Friesland province, over a length of 32 kilometres (20 mi) and a width of 90 metres (300 ft), at an initial height above Amsterdam Ordnance Datum of between 6.7 metres (22 ft) along the section at Friesland, and 7.4 metres (24 ft) where it crosses the deep channel of the Vlieter. The height at the greater sea depths west of Friesland was required to be a minimum of 7 metres everywhere when originally constructed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marken</span> Village in North Holland, Netherlands

Marken is a village in the municipality of Waterland in the province of North Holland, Netherlands. It had a population of 1,745 as of 2021, and occupies a peninsula in the Markermeer. It was, until 1957, an island in the former Zuiderzee. The characteristic wooden houses of Marken are a tourist attraction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Markerwaard</span>

The Markerwaard is the name of a proposed, but never built, polder adjoining the IJsselmeer in the central Netherlands. Its construction would have resulted in the near-total reclamation of the Markermeer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flood control in the Netherlands</span> Manmade control of flooding in the Netherlands

Flood control is an important issue for the Netherlands, as due to its low elevation, approximately two thirds of its area is vulnerable to flooding, while the country is densely populated. Natural sand dunes and constructed dikes, dams, and floodgates provide defense against storm surges from the sea. River dikes prevent flooding from water flowing into the country by the major rivers Rhine and Meuse, while a complicated system of drainage ditches, canals, and pumping stations keep the low-lying parts dry for habitation and agriculture. Water control boards are the independent local government bodies responsible for maintaining this system.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Flevopolder</span> Island polder in Flevoland, the Netherlands

The Flevopolder is an island polder forming the bulk of Flevoland, a province of the Netherlands. Created by land reclamation, its northeastern part was drained in 1955 and the remainder—the southwest—in 1968.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Breezanddijk</span> Village in Friesland, Netherlands

Breezanddijk is a small community that lies near the midpoint of the Afsluitdijk, part of the A7 motorway, in the Netherlands. It is located on a former artificial island which was created during the construction of the dam, and it belongs to the municipality of Súdwest-Fryslân, in Friesland province. The hamlet lies between Den Oever and Kornwerderzand.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Houtribdijk</span> Dam in the Netherlands

The Houtribdijk is a dam in the Netherlands, built between 1963 and 1975 as part of the Zuiderzee Works, which connects the cities of Lelystad and Enkhuizen. On the west side of the dike is the Markermeer and on the east is the IJsselmeer. The 27-kilometer-long dike was intended for the Markerwaard, but this polder is now unlikely to be constructed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Markermeer</span> Lake in the central Netherlands

The Markermeer is a 700 km2 (270 sq mi) lake in the central Netherlands in between North Holland, Flevoland, and its smaller and larger neighbors, the IJmeer and IJsselmeer. A shallow lake at 3 to 5 m in depth, matching the reclaimed land to its west, north-west and east it is named after the small former island, now peninsula, of Marken on its west shore.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pilot Polder Andijk</span>

The pilot Polder Andijk, or Test Polder Andijk, Proefpolder Andijk in Dutch, is a polder established in 1926 - 1927 in the Zuiderzee near the village of Andijk. The aim of this prototype is to study the embankments and agriculture for future polders in the Zuiderzee Works. In 1929, the pilot polder was inaugurated by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naviduct</span>

A naviduct is a special class of navigable aqueduct, in which the waterway also includes a lock. One example of a naviduct has been built at Enkhuizen on the Houtribdijk in the Netherlands on the instructions of the Rijkswaterstaat. This cost over €55 million and was completed in 2003. It is big enough to simultaneously transfer two large Rhine river-barges from the Markermeer to the IJsselmeer or vice versa. The structure was chosen because a busy waterway crosses a dam carrying a busy road, but the space available for separate aqueduct and lock facilities was restricted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marker Wadden</span> Artificial archipelago in the Netherlands

The Marker Wadden is an artificial archipelago under development in the Markermeer, a lake in the Netherlands. The first island was inaugurated on 24 September 2016. It is a nature reserve alternative to the much bigger proposed Markerwaard polder that was begun in 1941 but paused and finally abandoned in 2003.

References

  1. 1 2 3 How it Works: Science and Technology . Marshall Cavendish. 2003. p.  1208. ISBN   978-0-7614-7323-7.
  2. ↑ Carol Hand (2014). Amazing Feats of Environmental Engineering . ABDO. pp.  71–72. ISBN   978-1-62968-529-8.
  3. 1 2 Robert J Hoeksema (2007). "Three stages in the history of land reclamation in the Netherlands". Irrigation and Drainage. Wiley InterScience. 56 (56): 113–126. doi:10.1002/ird.340. S2CID   128768356.
  4. ↑ "Land Reclamation in the Netherlands 1300 Vs 2000".
  5. 1 2 3 Eduardo F. J. De Mulder; Ben C. De Pater; Joos C. Droogleever Fortuijn (28 July 2018). The Netherlands and the Dutch: A Physical and Human Geography. Springer International Publishing. pp. 20–23. ISBN   978-3-319-75073-6.
  6. ↑ Forrest Clingerman, Brian Treanor, Martin Drenthen, David Utsler, Interpreting Nature: The Emerging Field of Environmental Hermeneutics, Fordham University Press, 1 September 2013.
  7. ↑ "Kijk naar de geschiedenis". Rijkswaterstaat. Retrieved 21 January 2008.[ permanent dead link ]
  8. ↑ "waterschap". Archived from the original on 2 November 2012.
  9. ↑ Ley, Willy (October 1961). "The Home-Made Land". For Your Information. Galaxy Science Fiction. pp. 92–106.
  10. ↑ In de Nota RuimteRuimte voor ontwikkeling, Deel 4 Definitieve versie, Hoofdstuk 4 Gebieden en thema's, Paragraaf 6 IJsselmeergebied, Sub-paragraaf 4 Specifieke beleidskeuzen, Kop 3 Buitendijkse ontwikkelingen staat op pag. 156: "De ruimtelijke reservering voor een Markerwaard vervalt." PDF Archived 2014-01-14 at the Wayback Machine
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Teule, S. G. J. (2020). "The Struggle for the Markerwaard". Utrecht University Repository. Retrieved 16 June 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  12. ↑ Intentieverklaring Marker Wadden, Rijkswaterstaat, Dutch government bulletin, April 2013
  13. ↑ Boskalis wins Marker Wadden Island contract, Dredging News Online, 15 September 2015
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