Pilot Polder Andijk

Last updated November 08, 2019

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.^[1] In 1929, the pilot polder was inaugurated by Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands.

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:

Land reclaimed from a body of water, such as a lake or the sea bed
Flood plains separated from the sea or river by a dike
Marshes separated from the surrounding water by a dike and subsequently drained; these are also known as koogs, especially in Germany

Andijk (pronunciation is a former municipality and a village bordering Lake IJssel in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland and the region of West-Frisia. Since 1 January 2011 Andijk has been part of Medemblik municipality.

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.

Construction

In 1924 the Lovink Committee published a proposal to build a pilot polder.^[2] This polder could, on a small scale experiment future agriculture. The knowledge would then be used for the Wieringermeer. For this reason, in 1926-1927 near the village Andijk, 40 hectares (99 acres) of land were reclaimed.^[1]^[3] On August 27, 1927, the pilot polder was drained. The cost of the polder, about 1 million guilders,^[4] was relatively high, but the cost of polders to come should be lower.

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.

Research

The Directorate of Wieringermeer wanted to study the behavior of a soil recovered from the sea, and how saline soils can be cultivated. After the draining was completed, a farm was built as well as laboratories for agriculture, soil science and research in microbiology. Different aspects for optimal use of land have been studied, such as desalination, drying and compacting. Experiments were also made to know the best way to cultivate and to select suitable crops. Some species can concentrate the salt and prepare future plantations.^[5]

Land reclamation process of creating new land from ocean, riverbeds, or lake

Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, and also known as land fill, is the process of creating new land from oceans, seas, riverbeds or lake beds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamation ground or land fill.

Results

By 1929 the polder was dry. Rain normally washes salt from reclaimed land in six or seven years; to make the soil useful faster, gypsum was added to the soil with different fertilizers in various parts of the experimental farm. The land became an ordinary farm on 1 November 1935^[3] after tests showed that the polder could be cultivated. With the experience gained in the pilot, development of the polder Wieringermeer was accelerated.^[6]

Gypsum is a soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO₄·2H₂O. It is widely mined and is used as a fertilizer and as the main constituent in many forms of plaster, blackboard/sidewalk chalk, and drywall. A massive fine-grained white or lightly tinted variety of gypsum, called alabaster, has been used for sculpture by many cultures including Ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Ancient Rome, the Byzantine Empire, and the Nottingham alabasters of Medieval England. Gypsum also crystallizes as translucent crystals of selenite. It also forms as an evaporite mineral and as a hydration product of anhydrite.

Later use

In the late twentieth century the polder became a site for holiday homes.^[7]

Related Research Articles

Flevoland is the 12th and last province of the Netherlands, established on 1 January 1986, when the southern and eastern Flevopolders were merged into one provincial entity. It is located in the centre of the country, where the former Zuiderzee was. Almost all of the land belonging to Flevoland was reclaimed only in the 1950s and 1960s. The province has about 407,905 inhabitants (2016) and consists of six municipalities. Its capital is Lelystad and most populous city is Almere.

Lelystad 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.

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.

North Holland is a province of the Netherlands located in the northwestern part of the country. It is situated on the North Sea, north of South Holland and Utrecht, and west of Friesland and Flevoland. In 2015, it had a population of 2,762,163 and a total area of 2,670 km² (1,030 sq mi).

Beemster[ˈbeːmstər](listen) is a municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Also, the Beemster is the first so-called polder in the Netherlands that was reclaimed from a lake, the water being extracted out of the lake by windmills. The Beemster Polder was dried during the period 1609 through 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.

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 of 7.25 metres (23.8 ft) above sea level.

Emmeloord is the administrative center of the municipality of Noordoostpolder, Flevoland, Netherlands.

On April 17, 1945, the German occupying forces inundated the polder Wieringermeer, the Netherlands.

Cornelis Lely was a Dutch politician of the Liberal Union (LU) and civil engineer. He oversaw the passage of an act of parliament authorising construction of the Zuiderzee Works, a huge project – designed to his own plans – that turned the Zuiderzee into a lake and made possible the conversion of a vast area of former seabed into dry land.

Wieringerwerf is a town in the Dutch province of North Holland. It is a part of the municipality of Hollands Kroon, and lies about 21 kilometres (13 mi) southeast of Den Helder. With about 6000 inhabitants, Wieringerwerf is the largest town of the municipality. It is situated in a polder. The elevation of the village is 4 metres (13 ft) below sea level. Dikes and pumping engines keep the land dry.

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.

The Holland Marsh is a wetland and agricultural area in Ontario, Canada, about 50 kilometres (31 mi) north of Toronto. It lies entirely within the valley of the Holland River, stretching from the northern edge of the Oak Ridges Moraine near Schomberg to the river mouth at Cook's Bay, Lake Simcoe. In its entirety it comprises about 21,000 acres, with two distinct divisions. Historically it has simply been referred to as "the marsh".

Tollebeek is a village in the Dutch province of Flevoland. It is a part of the municipality of Noordoostpolder, and is approximately 90 kilometres north east of Amsterdam.

The Flevopolder is a polder, or region of reclaimed land, in Flevoland, Netherlands. The eastern part was drained in 1955 and the southern part in 1968.

Land reclamation in the Netherlands has had a long history. As early as in the 14th century the first reclaimed land had been settled.

References

1 2 Hoeksema, R. J. (2006). Designed for dry feet: flood protection and land reclamation in the Netherlands. ASCE Publications. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-7844-0829-2.
↑ Steiner, Frederick R.; H. N. van Lier (1984). Land conservation and development: examples of land-use planning projects and programs. Elsevier. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-444-42253-8.
1 2 Ley, Willy (October 1961). "The Home-Made Land". For Your Information. Galaxy Science Fiction. pp. 92–106.
↑ Karger-Decker, Bernt (1963). Wunderwerke von Menschenhand. Koehler & Amelang. p. 408. OCLC 73487630.
↑ Wagret, Paul (1968). Polderlands . Methuen Publishing. p. 117. OCLC 462365.
↑ Jenkins, Alan C. (1966). The golden band: Holland's fight against the sea. Methuen Publishing. p. 71. OCLC 955509.
↑ van der Wal, Coen (1997). In praise of common sense: planning the ordinary: a physical planning history of the new towns in the Ijsselmeerpolders. 010 Publishers. p. 83. ISBN 978-90-6450-302-3.

Coordinates: 52°45′05″N5°11′43″E / 52.75139°N 5.19528°E / 52.75139; 5.19528

Geographic coordinate system Coordinate system

A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are often chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position and two or three of the numbers represent a horizontal position; alternatively, a geographic position may be expressed in a combined three-dimensional Cartesian vector. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation. To specify a location on a plane requires a map projection.

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[hoeksema2006-1] 1 2 Hoeksema, R. J. (2006). Designed for dry feet: flood protection and land reclamation in the Netherlands. ASCE Publications. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-7844-0829-2.

[2] Steiner, Frederick R.; H. N. van Lier (1984). Land conservation and development: examples of land-use planning projects and programs. Elsevier. p. 21. ISBN 978-0-444-42253-8.

[ley196110-3] 1 2 Ley, Willy (October 1961). "The Home-Made Land". For Your Information. Galaxy Science Fiction. pp. 92–106.

[4] Karger-Decker, Bernt (1963). Wunderwerke von Menschenhand. Koehler & Amelang. p. 408. OCLC 73487630.

[5] Wagret, Paul (1968). Polderlands . Methuen Publishing. p. 117. OCLC 462365.

[6] Jenkins, Alan C. (1966). The golden band: Holland's fight against the sea. Methuen Publishing. p. 71. OCLC 955509.

[7] van der Wal, Coen (1997). In praise of common sense: planning the ordinary: a physical planning history of the new towns in the Ijsselmeerpolders. 010 Publishers. p. 83. ISBN 978-90-6450-302-3.