A simple start with far-reaching consequences

✍ Scribed by Dick de Bruin; Bart Schultz

• Book ID: 102287141
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 224 KB
• Volume: 52
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1531-0353
• DOI: 10.1002/ird.81

✦ Synopsis

Abstract

The history of water management in The Netherlands shows how the original natural landscape was transformed into a man‐made landscape and has led to a never‐ending struggle with the water. Water comes from all directions into the lowlands: over land via rivers (floods), from the sea side (surges), from above (excessive rainfall) and from the subsoil (seepage). Human intervention is continuously needed to be able to survive with effective solutions. History has shown that since men started intervening in nature, in particular in the alluvial water‐saturated soft soils where Dutch society has settled and developed, the need for these measures will never stop. Any one measure leads to counter and correcting measures later on. This is clearly visible today and it will definitively continue in the future. It sets the mind of Dutch society in its continuous struggle for life and can be a lesson learned for others, living and developing in areas with similar water‐related characteristics. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.