The Netherlands: How the Dutch Built the Netherlands to Protect it from Flooding

Most of the Netherlands is actually below sea level which causes quite some problems for thecountry. The Dutch have spent centuries building sea defenses to push back water, successfully managing to reclaim almost 20% of their land from the sea and lakes.

To achieve this impressive goal, they used polders, low-lying areas of land that were reclaimed through the building of dikes, drainage canals, and pumping stations. Today, there are more than 3,000 polders throughout the nation. This wasn't enough though, and in 1916, they suffered from severe flooding.

That's when the Dutch decided to work on the Afsluitdijk to protect low-lying areas and the wall off the Zuiderzee from the sea. The seawall was one of the largest engineering feats of its time, spanning 20 mi (32 km) and a final height of 23 ft (7 m) above sea level. More impressive was the fact that it was topped off by sand and clay, and held together by grass.

Read more at: How the Dutch Built the Netherlands to Protect it from Flooding

Global Warming: Low-lying Netherlands is exporting its water-management expertise

Netherlands: famous for water-management expertise

Passengers arriving at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport might be alarmed to learn that they are landing on a runway that would  be — if nature took its course — 13 feet under water.

The fact that the runway is dry and the passengers can alight without getting their feet wet is thanks to more than a century of water management. For hundreds of years, the Dutch have been pumping, draining, building sea walls and dykes, fighting coastal erosion and reclaiming land as a matter of national survival because more than half their country lies below sea level.

These skills in keeping water at bay have served the domestic economy in the Netherlands well, but now, in an era of climate change and rising sea levels, they are driving a major export industry as well.
 
“There are so many cities around the world in deltas, or in coastal zones, very close to the water that are in jeopardy,” Piet Dircke, a Dutch water engineer, told Marketplace. “Millions of people in these big cities need to be protected against the impacts of floods and climate change, and the Dutch know how to do that,” Dircke said.

From Wuhan in China, to São Paulo in Brazil, to Miami, New Orleans and New York, big coastal and riverine cities around the world have been hiring Dutch companies to combat rising sea levels. Dircke’s employer, the giant engineering consulting firm Arcadis, has seen its water business revenues jump by 42 percent over the past five years to $515 million due to this increasing global demand for Dutch expertise.

The know-how extends well beyond pumping and draining. In Rotterdam harbor, an experimental  project has been unveiled that could help communities cope with rising sea levels, not by draining and reclaiming land but by “building on water.” 

Read more: Low-lying Netherlands is exporting its water-management expertise

The Netherlands: High Water Sparks Dutch Evacuations

Dozens of farmers were warned to evacuate land north of the Dutch capital Thursday as a dike protecting the area threatened to collapse.

Local mayor Ben Plandsoen told national broadcaster NOS that a polder - reclaimed land that is drained by pumps and mills - would likely be submerged under some 40 centimeters (16 inches) of water if the dike protecting it breaks.

The densely populated nation of nearly 17 million, 25 percent of which lies below sea level, has been drenched by heavy rain and buffeted by strong northwesterly winds for days.The rain saturated dikes and filled drainage canals and rivers while gales lashing the coast hampered efforts to pump the excess water out of canals and into the sea.

No deaths or injuries have been reported in the Netherlands, though the strong winds caused delays at the country's main airport, Schiphol, and on railways.

For more: High Water Sparks Dutch Evacuations - weather.com