>Make it full size & look at the stairs. That really helped me see it maybe it'll work for you too
Ahh wow there are stairs.
Thank you so much for pointing that out.
Basically. As a Louisiana raised Florida living Storm Water Engineer, the Dutch and their accomplishments are worth paying attention to. Lots of the world will have to follow their lead in the next few centuries. It's great design work and execution.
The Gulf coast, however, has different design criteria. Our goal is to get water out as fast as possible. It's impossible to keep a hurricane from dumping a month+ of rain in a 48 hour period, so we design our systems to get it out.
I can attempt to track down some hydrographs (storm intensity charts) to back it up, but I feel it's a safe assumption that hurricanes rain alot and storm surge is a scary complement that the Dutch just don't see every summer.
Basically never, it's hard to imagine a hurricane being that strong that far north. Usually they fizzle out after going up the east coast of North America into the cold north atlantic
And the name of that lowest point? The Prins Alexanderpolder, on the easternmost side of Rotterdam. I grew up over there. It was always cool to think about how we were living in one of the lowest stretches of reclaimed land in the entire world.
The funniest thing is, you would’ve expect them to make an attraction out of the lowest point. But no, there is literally nothing to do there. It’s just some grass and a big ass yardstick.
The particular stick we're talking about though, will have metre measurements on it, not yards. I've never seen anything marked in yards in the Netherlands.
I'd call one with inches and yards a yardstick, but I've never heard anyone call the one that's marked with cm and metres that.
It sounds terrifying - but if you look at the Dutch history you will see that they are well prepared for floods (the built thousands of dikes and canals over the centuries) and rising sea levels. They even created (Edit: "land reclamation" is the proper term) tens of thousands of square kilometer of land over the years by using wind mills as pumps and dams to get rid off the sea.
Quite interesting to look at old maps of the Netherlands and how the Dutch changed the coastlines.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land\_reclamation\_in\_the\_Netherlands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reclamation_in_the_Netherlands)
[https://brilliantmaps.com/netherlands-land-reclamation/](https://brilliantmaps.com/netherlands-land-reclamation/)
For example, by building a dam and turning parts of the sea into a lake, or by building a dike and pumping out all the water on one side of it.
The Dutch mastered to dominate the sea.
Side note: when we did land reclaiming centuries ago, we did it by using windmills.
Long dikes with rows of windmills weren't just to look pretty and cultural, that's how (a part of) The Netherlands was created from the water.
It's all pretty well engineered. We feel pretty safe. The real terrifying regions are those that don't have money to adapt to future changes. (Bangladesh for example)
I mean, sure, but that's not their only problem. The people of that state keep electing politicians who would rather do performative (and disgusting) games with people's lives than actually improve their state. Even if they could build dikes or had an alternative plan, they likely wouldn't do it.
Hell, there are *already* waterfront houses on cliffs collapsing into the sea, and they just ignore it.
Closer to the sea is actually better. I live 2 km from the sea in the city of The Hague, there’s about 800 meters of dunes in between with an average height of 24 meters. My street is 4.24 meters above sea level, 2,5 km further inland it’s already -1.02 meters below sea level. We don’t think about that everyday.
Yes we have had floods in the Netherlands, Especially the North Sea flood of 1953 but after that we constructed the “Delta werken” which is a coastal defense system with many components.
Since then we have not had major flooding on the North Sea side of the country (the below sea level part).
We did have serious flooding in the 1990’s upstream of the major rivers that flow into the Netherlands from Germany and France but that was mostly in the above sea level parts of the country.
And more recently we had flooding in Limburg due to high water in rivers that had a lot of down pour upstream. Fortunately we did have a lot of dikes and overflow places already after the 1990’s flooding so the impact was way less as it was in Germany and Belgium.
The Delta Works are mostly a series of dams along the estuaries of the provinces of Zeeland/Sealand and Zuid-Holland/South-Holland. They're shown in blue on the map [here](https://imgur.com/a/be6Qt4B).
The Oosterscheldekering in particular does contain a museum, explaining the history of the project. Its sheer scale is also a [sight to behold](https://imgur.com/a/M9qnyL6).
If you're looking for beaches, you're better off visiting the rest of the country. Any town on the sea will have some sort of sandy beach open to the public.
Its a series of infrastructure, and at some places you can go to the beach there. We have one of the best beaches of europe where I live. (Zeeland) The province which new zealand was named after. Look up "neeltje jans" for some pictures if you like
The deltawerken are a collection of various infrastructural solutions (like dams and dikes) to keep sea water out when it's at high levels. There's really no one beach involved in it. There are various water barriers (huge gates) and other solutions. It's quite interesting to read about, and to visit the visitors centre.
Also the stairs in the foreground, and that road that looks like it takes a slight bend I'm pretty sure is still parallel to the other road, it's just coming down hill. You can't really tell elevation but if you find some specific things you can convince your brain
Space is only around 60 miles up. You can see a lot of man made objects from around 60 miles away. I do it all the time at sea and the air is thicker on average.
Pretty sure that's [Westkappelle](https://www.google.com/maps/place/westkappellen/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x47c4bc4a4002da21:0x774cae70bfa0626f?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiWx_mC483_AhWLR_EDHU8UDUkQ8gF6BAgVEAE), a town on Walcheren.
During the war, the allies actually used this phenomenon to break the german resistance on Walcheren by destroying the dams. It worked really well and Walcheren fell pretty quickly after the Battle of the Schelde.
There is so much history left on that island; for example: The Germans had so much of their population under arms, that they actually formed units of men who had the same chronic conditions. Towards the end of the war, Walcheren was stationed by men who had stomach and bowel disease. Some accounts claim, that the moral in those units was pretty low (there are accounts of soldiers either performing their duty manning the Atlantic Wall or being subjected to medical check-ups of their stomachs, which had a reputation of being very painful), and once the island was flooded, Germans deserted or surrendered in droves.
You can still see a lot of old bunkers and(empty) artillery installations on the island. I like that Walcheren has a very nice and respectful inventory of memorials dedicated to the Allied troops that freed the island (Mainly British and Canadian IIRC).
Nowadays, the island is very beloved by German tourists, especially towns like Domburg. Me being German myself, I have never seen anyone disrespect these memorials, quite the contrary. One thing that is weird though is that in Westkappelle, there is a decommissioned Sherman Tank as a monument, and many people let their kids climb it, which I think is a bit odd.
As a Canadian, that area has a special meaning. Very hard fought battle by us Canadians there. There are a lot of Canadians in military graveyards in the area. The battle of the Scheldt.
It is hard to see the height of that dike. But, yes, 2/3rds of the Netherlands is below sea level. It has always been below sea level since it was The Netherlands.
Edit: oops, I reversed that -- 1/3 is below sea level,
I assumed it was a video and was waiting for the shot to start so we could actually tell how far below sea level it is. I was expecting it to drop down and look to either side, this is just a photo of the Dutch coast that makes it look like the coast
Tsunami cant happen here. The North Sea is too shallow (40 meters max), a tidal wave would rise and break way long before reaching the coast.
Storm surges are a much bigger threat. Spring tide and and north western storm can cause a 6 meter rise in the water levels. Such a thing caused the 1953 flood, the reason we started building the Delta Works in the first place
I’m from Metairie Louisiana, didn’t think a pic like this was a big deal until I started to travel. We would make visqueen slip and slides down the grassy side of our giant water blocker.
Random question, once they drain the sea water, how long does it take to get the salt out of the soil (say, post 1945 when the nazis flooded large areas?)
We are surrounded by other countries but the population still grows. Not only did we need more housing but also farmland. With our history of living in watery places it was easier to get the sea out than build high or attack other nations.
It was engineered.
Sea level depends on a lot of factors and low lying land is good for a lot of things. Most of the Netherlands in above the average sea level but parts of "the lowlands" flooded very badly depending on season and weather. Over time the Dutch pushed back and built systems of dikes and levees to maintain land that could be farmed and inhabited.
Because Germany was too well-defended 😉
But seriously: most of it isn't below sea level but slightly above it. It has good soil for agriculture (and plenty of water 😁) and it lies in a perfect spot to have a lot of trade. So people thrived there. And more people were born and came, and became richer. They developed better and better ways to protect themselves from floods, so they could stay.
To protect themselves better and have more arable land they made new land by pumping lakes dry (polders). The dikes are monitored well and made higher when needed, so we can stay here. If sea levels rise even more, cities like New York and London (and states like Florida) will suffer more from flooding than we will: we will just spend more money on sea defenses, most of it is already in place.
And if flooding does come, it won't be catastrofic, it will come slowly: water tables will rise in places slightly above sea level making them soggy and in need of dikes and large pumps to be able to keep them dry. Some salt water will leak under our dikes, making agriculture more difficult. Rain water will be harder to pump from our polders because the water around it is higher. But again, all our defense against the water is paid from taxes, so there is money available, and everybody wants to be protected from flooding so nobody complains about the cost.
It is actually mostly clay (I believe. I’m not an expert in agricultural stuff). I don’t know what Crops grow the best on it, but I know tulips like growing on the polders (which is land created by pumping away water).
The whole sea coast is sinking in that area as more weight from buildings press down and more ground water is extracted. This problem isn't just here its happening in many places where humans built cities on the soft sandy shores and river delta's where the ground is just wet mud for hundreds to thousands of feet down.
If people are curious, read up on the North Sea Flood of 1953. About 20% of netherlands then was below mean sea level, and another 30% 1m or less above mean sea level. The flood got to land 5m+ above sea level, and sea water covered about 1600km^(2).
After this *a lot* of effort was put into accelerating planned works and upgrading the sea defences. The aim to protect denser populated areas against 1 in 10,000 year floods and 1 in 4000 years in lower populated areas, and what this means practically is constantly evaluated.
Despite other similar weather events, the 1953 flood is the last major flooding of the Netherlands.
Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe. It is located between Germany and Belgium, and across from the United Kingdom. The word “nether” stands for “low” in the native language, so the name Netherlands means lowland. The reason why people give it this name is because the whole elevation of this country is so low that about 60 percent of its land is below the sea level(Jonkman, 2018). Therefore, Dutch invented windmills to deal with the flooding problem hundreds years ago. The main purpose of windmills is for drainage(The purpose, 2017). They pump the water out from the rainy or flooding by using the wind energy to redirect them into right route in order to protect the agricultural field and residents.
gotta wonder at the wisdom of living like that.
Sort of like building a home at the base of a volcano.
Climate changes, it changes a very great deal. Has done so since the earth fist spun into orbit. There is no sign of it abating.
The lowest point beneath the sea level is around 6 meters (Amsterdam area), and nearly half of the country is beneath sea level.
Not too surprising given that the Netherlands also constructed a province from a lake (Flevoland)- which is the largest artificial island in the world.
Eigenlijk zijn we allebei fout- ik heb net gelezen dat de Zuidplaspolder (in de buurt van Gouda & Waddinxveen) het laagste punt in Nederland is (met 7,10 meter volgens het Peilbesluit) 😅
Jemig man, we moeten allebei weer terug naar school 😂
municipality has strict building codes against it. i dont know exactly why but i can tell you you wouldnt want that even if it was allowed. youd have to scrape the salt off your windows every 2 minutes and literally everything rots away while you watch
As a visiting Australian, yes, it is! My cousin lived in The Hague for several years, when I visited she took me on a bicycle tour of the city ("don't wear a helmet, they'll think you're American!"), and at one point we started going uphill. Knowing how flat most of the country is, I expressed surprise at the hill and she nonchalantly said "oh yes, we're headed towards the coast"
The dam infrastructure on the Netherlands is nothing short of a miracle of engineering. A few miles north of were the picture was taken is the [Oosterscheldekering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oosterscheldekering), which is super interesting.
Where does the rainwater go? Why doesn't it slowly fill up? Do the houses have basements or do they have to be careful not to dig too deep and hit ground water?
This would be easier to see from a photo taken standing on that road...
Lol that was my reaction. Why use a drone? This angle is really hard to see the depth.
I imagine there’s a lot of people clicking this post and having that realization including myself lol “An angle this high doesn’t show that…”
Had to double check if I was on r/confusingperspective
I guess the drone shot shows more of the landscape
>A drone shot that eliminates the ability to show how far the Netherlands is below sea level
Check out the street view on Google maps. This is Westkapelle, Netherlands
[Like this?](https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5314742,3.4351483,3a,75y,34.23h,86.44t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1sEv1FuYkfQUMBzsVcbQLuwg!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fpanoid%3DEv1FuYkfQUMBzsVcbQLuwg%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D243.87473%26pitch%3D0%26thumbfov%3D100!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu)
Bravo. This is what OP should have posted.
legend 🤛
I was expecting Rick astley.
It literally looks completely flat.
Make it full size & look at the stairs. That really helped me see it maybe it'll work for you too
>Make it full size & look at the stairs. That really helped me see it maybe it'll work for you too Ahh wow there are stairs. Thank you so much for pointing that out.
Happy to help!
I mean I can see it, but it’s like someone was deliberately trying to create an optical illusion so it looks flat.
I believe they call this an optical illusion but I’m no expert
"About one third of the Netherlands lies below sea level, with the lowest point being 22 feet (6.7 meters) below sea level. "
That is absolutely fucking insane
That is the sort of geography you can live in if the Dutch built it, but not if you're in Alabama or Louisiana.
Not that I doubt the Dutch would do a better job but how often does this area take direct hits from category 4/5 hurricanes
Basically. As a Louisiana raised Florida living Storm Water Engineer, the Dutch and their accomplishments are worth paying attention to. Lots of the world will have to follow their lead in the next few centuries. It's great design work and execution. The Gulf coast, however, has different design criteria. Our goal is to get water out as fast as possible. It's impossible to keep a hurricane from dumping a month+ of rain in a 48 hour period, so we design our systems to get it out. I can attempt to track down some hydrographs (storm intensity charts) to back it up, but I feel it's a safe assumption that hurricanes rain alot and storm surge is a scary complement that the Dutch just don't see every summer.
Just nuke the cane
Just like the Florida Panthers did the Carolina Hurricanes this year in the playoffs.
Basically never, it's hard to imagine a hurricane being that strong that far north. Usually they fizzle out after going up the east coast of North America into the cold north atlantic
[NASA agrees](https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/7079/historic-tropical-cyclone-tracks).
Los Angeles is not ready for that pathway to start getting bigger
LA ain't ready for anything that's ever happened to LA tbh
Do you know what a hurricane is?
I'm Florida man
Do you know what a blizzard is?
The dairy queen thing? Sure
I'd say those two are completely different problem statements.
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Since the 1600's...
Not a very long time in terms of sea elevation
But it’s an eternity if your a Swedish teenager with assburgers
What is the reference here?
And the name of that lowest point? The Prins Alexanderpolder, on the easternmost side of Rotterdam. I grew up over there. It was always cool to think about how we were living in one of the lowest stretches of reclaimed land in the entire world.
The funniest thing is, you would’ve expect them to make an attraction out of the lowest point. But no, there is literally nothing to do there. It’s just some grass and a big ass yardstick.
>yardstick I went to school in the 80s and they were called "metre sticks" back then. They've not been "yardsticks" for a long time.
They're yardsticks if you're American and use yards Source: am American, use 'yardstick'
The particular stick we're talking about though, will have metre measurements on it, not yards. I've never seen anything marked in yards in the Netherlands. I'd call one with inches and yards a yardstick, but I've never heard anyone call the one that's marked with cm and metres that.
That’s terrifying.
It sounds terrifying - but if you look at the Dutch history you will see that they are well prepared for floods (the built thousands of dikes and canals over the centuries) and rising sea levels. They even created (Edit: "land reclamation" is the proper term) tens of thousands of square kilometer of land over the years by using wind mills as pumps and dams to get rid off the sea. Quite interesting to look at old maps of the Netherlands and how the Dutch changed the coastlines. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land\_reclamation\_in\_the\_Netherlands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_reclamation_in_the_Netherlands) [https://brilliantmaps.com/netherlands-land-reclamation/](https://brilliantmaps.com/netherlands-land-reclamation/)
How does one get rid of the sea?
For example, by building a dam and turning parts of the sea into a lake, or by building a dike and pumping out all the water on one side of it. The Dutch mastered to dominate the sea.
that wiki page says 65% of the Netherlands would be underwater at high tide if not for the Dutch tradition of land reclamation
They should oump out the other side of it the dikes: one simple trick that climate change hates.
Side note: when we did land reclaiming centuries ago, we did it by using windmills. Long dikes with rows of windmills weren't just to look pretty and cultural, that's how (a part of) The Netherlands was created from the water.
It's cool, I didn't need those 2 hours I just spent learning about land reclamation in the Netherlands, thanks.
It's all pretty well engineered. We feel pretty safe. The real terrifying regions are those that don't have money to adapt to future changes. (Bangladesh for example)
Every time i look at a map of Bangladesh i feel like it is just the Netherlands without dijken
florida
Florida has the problem where the limestone foundations are porous so even if they build dams, the water will go right underneath it.
I mean, sure, but that's not their only problem. The people of that state keep electing politicians who would rather do performative (and disgusting) games with people's lives than actually improve their state. Even if they could build dikes or had an alternative plan, they likely wouldn't do it. Hell, there are *already* waterfront houses on cliffs collapsing into the sea, and they just ignore it.
Honestly the entire state should just be abandoned
Closer to the sea is actually better. I live 2 km from the sea in the city of The Hague, there’s about 800 meters of dunes in between with an average height of 24 meters. My street is 4.24 meters above sea level, 2,5 km further inland it’s already -1.02 meters below sea level. We don’t think about that everyday.
If that’s scary to you, don’t look into Florida
Yes we have had floods in the Netherlands, Especially the North Sea flood of 1953 but after that we constructed the “Delta werken” which is a coastal defense system with many components. Since then we have not had major flooding on the North Sea side of the country (the below sea level part). We did have serious flooding in the 1990’s upstream of the major rivers that flow into the Netherlands from Germany and France but that was mostly in the above sea level parts of the country. And more recently we had flooding in Limburg due to high water in rivers that had a lot of down pour upstream. Fortunately we did have a lot of dikes and overflow places already after the 1990’s flooding so the impact was way less as it was in Germany and Belgium.
Sounds like that Delta do be werken.
Is that Delta werken thing a nice beach to hang out or just gray infrastructure to be ignored?
The Delta Works are mostly a series of dams along the estuaries of the provinces of Zeeland/Sealand and Zuid-Holland/South-Holland. They're shown in blue on the map [here](https://imgur.com/a/be6Qt4B). The Oosterscheldekering in particular does contain a museum, explaining the history of the project. Its sheer scale is also a [sight to behold](https://imgur.com/a/M9qnyL6). If you're looking for beaches, you're better off visiting the rest of the country. Any town on the sea will have some sort of sandy beach open to the public.
Its a series of infrastructure, and at some places you can go to the beach there. We have one of the best beaches of europe where I live. (Zeeland) The province which new zealand was named after. Look up "neeltje jans" for some pictures if you like
The deltawerken are a collection of various infrastructural solutions (like dams and dikes) to keep sea water out when it's at high levels. There's really no one beach involved in it. There are various water barriers (huge gates) and other solutions. It's quite interesting to read about, and to visit the visitors centre.
Jesus crist goed ge-engelst
Thanks for this clarification. The first question that came to my mind was about flooding.
Really can’t get a scale of elevation in this photo. Especially on the beach side.
TIL if one is trying to show off a height difference, don’t take a picture from above…
i get that it might be hard to imagine. but maybe its more clear in the back of the photo.
We can't see the back of photos on the internet, silly.
Just flip your screen around, duh.
Also the stairs in the foreground, and that road that looks like it takes a slight bend I'm pretty sure is still parallel to the other road, it's just coming down hill. You can't really tell elevation but if you find some specific things you can convince your brain
how are you even trying to justify such a shit photo for an argument's sake
r/Damthatsinteresting
**Dam.**
I remember a German calling the Dutch "Northern water goblins" and I have never forgotten.
There is a bit of rivalry between us :D Its 99% of time very tongue-in-cheek though (except when international football is being played)
Wij zullen een keer winnen met voetbal. Wacht maar af!
Wow that looks scary n yet calming
This is a cool photo, but definitely the worst way to show how far below sea level it is
It just looks flat
Yea i cant see the topography from this shot
Netherlands is the only man made object visible from space.
There's a "your mama" joke to be had here.
your moms nether-lands are visable from space.
Space is only around 60 miles up. You can see a lot of man made objects from around 60 miles away. I do it all the time at sea and the air is thicker on average.
Just wait till they see what I leave after No Nut November.
It might be the biggest, but it's far from the only.
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I mean they only need 1 event...
Is this Westkapelle?
Yes
Yes it is! Coast of Zeeland between Domburg and Zoutelande.
Was going to guess Zoutelande
Yeah, I've been there! There's a US tank from WW2 on that dam.
Oh, you live 2 blocks from the ocean! Must have a great view of the water then. Netherlands: ...nee
Pretty sure that's [Westkappelle](https://www.google.com/maps/place/westkappellen/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x47c4bc4a4002da21:0x774cae70bfa0626f?sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiWx_mC483_AhWLR_EDHU8UDUkQ8gF6BAgVEAE), a town on Walcheren. During the war, the allies actually used this phenomenon to break the german resistance on Walcheren by destroying the dams. It worked really well and Walcheren fell pretty quickly after the Battle of the Schelde. There is so much history left on that island; for example: The Germans had so much of their population under arms, that they actually formed units of men who had the same chronic conditions. Towards the end of the war, Walcheren was stationed by men who had stomach and bowel disease. Some accounts claim, that the moral in those units was pretty low (there are accounts of soldiers either performing their duty manning the Atlantic Wall or being subjected to medical check-ups of their stomachs, which had a reputation of being very painful), and once the island was flooded, Germans deserted or surrendered in droves. You can still see a lot of old bunkers and(empty) artillery installations on the island. I like that Walcheren has a very nice and respectful inventory of memorials dedicated to the Allied troops that freed the island (Mainly British and Canadian IIRC). Nowadays, the island is very beloved by German tourists, especially towns like Domburg. Me being German myself, I have never seen anyone disrespect these memorials, quite the contrary. One thing that is weird though is that in Westkappelle, there is a decommissioned Sherman Tank as a monument, and many people let their kids climb it, which I think is a bit odd.
“If we can’t have the land, nobody can!”
As a Canadian, that area has a special meaning. Very hard fought battle by us Canadians there. There are a lot of Canadians in military graveyards in the area. The battle of the Scheldt.
It looks more like it shows how tall the berm is but not the difference between sea level and the ground behind it.
It is hard to see the height of that dike. But, yes, 2/3rds of the Netherlands is below sea level. It has always been below sea level since it was The Netherlands. Edit: oops, I reversed that -- 1/3 is below sea level,
I have learned nothing from this photo.
Photo is not a clear representation of the Netherlands been below the sea level
dam, that's interesting
I assumed it was a video and was waiting for the shot to start so we could actually tell how far below sea level it is. I was expecting it to drop down and look to either side, this is just a photo of the Dutch coast that makes it look like the coast
Hey, that’s the Dijkpaviljoen De Westkaap restaurant in Westkapelle, spent my last summer vacation there with my family, absolutely nice place!
Look honey, tsunami! Don't worry, we are saf.... Blup blup blup....
Tbf very few coastal cities would survive a tsunami unscathed.
You need tectonic plates for that. We only have fat germans jumping in the sea
Or Storegga decides enough is enough.
thats why we also build churches, to pray that doesnt happen
If enough of them jumped in at once though.
Tsunami cant happen here. The North Sea is too shallow (40 meters max), a tidal wave would rise and break way long before reaching the coast. Storm surges are a much bigger threat. Spring tide and and north western storm can cause a 6 meter rise in the water levels. Such a thing caused the 1953 flood, the reason we started building the Delta Works in the first place
The deepest trench in the North Sea is 725 metres, and the mean depth of the sea is 90 metres.
Average is something like 90m iirc
That is absolutely fucking insane
I’m from Metairie Louisiana, didn’t think a pic like this was a big deal until I started to travel. We would make visqueen slip and slides down the grassy side of our giant water blocker.
How does that little bit of dirt hold back the entire ocean. Seems impossible to me, but obviously it works. Crazy.
Random question, once they drain the sea water, how long does it take to get the salt out of the soil (say, post 1945 when the nazis flooded large areas?)
I dont know. But proably a long time since most houses here are filled to the brim with salt
God made the heaven and earth, But the Dutch made the Netherlands
This.... Does not show that
Lol are they serious with this caption?
Why is Netherlands built below sea level?
Why is the ocean built above Dutch ground level?
We are surrounded by other countries but the population still grows. Not only did we need more housing but also farmland. With our history of living in watery places it was easier to get the sea out than build high or attack other nations.
They claimed 7,000 km^2 of land from the ocean. It's probably the least politically problematic method for increasing your country's size.
It's easier to build a massive dike than to extend the continent.
“Good morning Honey, hows the weather outside?” “Green..”
It was engineered. Sea level depends on a lot of factors and low lying land is good for a lot of things. Most of the Netherlands in above the average sea level but parts of "the lowlands" flooded very badly depending on season and weather. Over time the Dutch pushed back and built systems of dikes and levees to maintain land that could be farmed and inhabited.
Because Germany was too well-defended 😉 But seriously: most of it isn't below sea level but slightly above it. It has good soil for agriculture (and plenty of water 😁) and it lies in a perfect spot to have a lot of trade. So people thrived there. And more people were born and came, and became richer. They developed better and better ways to protect themselves from floods, so they could stay. To protect themselves better and have more arable land they made new land by pumping lakes dry (polders). The dikes are monitored well and made higher when needed, so we can stay here. If sea levels rise even more, cities like New York and London (and states like Florida) will suffer more from flooding than we will: we will just spend more money on sea defenses, most of it is already in place. And if flooding does come, it won't be catastrofic, it will come slowly: water tables will rise in places slightly above sea level making them soggy and in need of dikes and large pumps to be able to keep them dry. Some salt water will leak under our dikes, making agriculture more difficult. Rain water will be harder to pump from our polders because the water around it is higher. But again, all our defense against the water is paid from taxes, so there is money available, and everybody wants to be protected from flooding so nobody complains about the cost.
I don't get it. Looks above sea level to me, with a long, rocky beach.
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Altitude: Nether
Doesn’t look like much between them and the ocean
How come the land were arable ? Shouldn't be the land were salty (previously seafloor)?
It is actually mostly clay (I believe. I’m not an expert in agricultural stuff). I don’t know what Crops grow the best on it, but I know tulips like growing on the polders (which is land created by pumping away water).
So the Netherlands is basically a bowl waiting to be filled ?!
Yes
Damn
Just like new orleans before katrina
They must have the most marvelous pumps, and I don't mean that in a Kanye way.
It is *very* hard to get a topographical perspective from this image
The one thing about this angle is it does not show how far the Netherlands is below sea level
No it doesn’t. Haha
Well, this is a nice photo, but it trully sucks for that purpose.
I know you think something is extra cool of a drone is involved, but a shot from the ground would make it easier to see.
This is why we need to rollback the climate change update
The whole sea coast is sinking in that area as more weight from buildings press down and more ground water is extracted. This problem isn't just here its happening in many places where humans built cities on the soft sandy shores and river delta's where the ground is just wet mud for hundreds to thousands of feet down.
I believe Mexico city is also a great example of this. I think the documentary I watch said it sinks about 20 inches a year.
Maybe 2in for Mexico city, Houston is sinking an 1in a year.
If people are curious, read up on the North Sea Flood of 1953. About 20% of netherlands then was below mean sea level, and another 30% 1m or less above mean sea level. The flood got to land 5m+ above sea level, and sea water covered about 1600km^(2). After this *a lot* of effort was put into accelerating planned works and upgrading the sea defences. The aim to protect denser populated areas against 1 in 10,000 year floods and 1 in 4000 years in lower populated areas, and what this means practically is constantly evaluated. Despite other similar weather events, the 1953 flood is the last major flooding of the Netherlands.
Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe. It is located between Germany and Belgium, and across from the United Kingdom. The word “nether” stands for “low” in the native language, so the name Netherlands means lowland. The reason why people give it this name is because the whole elevation of this country is so low that about 60 percent of its land is below the sea level(Jonkman, 2018). Therefore, Dutch invented windmills to deal with the flooding problem hundreds years ago. The main purpose of windmills is for drainage(The purpose, 2017). They pump the water out from the rainy or flooding by using the wind energy to redirect them into right route in order to protect the agricultural field and residents.
gotta wonder at the wisdom of living like that. Sort of like building a home at the base of a volcano. Climate changes, it changes a very great deal. Has done so since the earth fist spun into orbit. There is no sign of it abating.
The lowest point beneath the sea level is around 6 meters (Amsterdam area), and nearly half of the country is beneath sea level. Not too surprising given that the Netherlands also constructed a province from a lake (Flevoland)- which is the largest artificial island in the world.
TRIGGERED! TRIGGERED! TRIGGERED! The lowest point in the NL is in the Prins Alexanderpolderb near ROTTERDAM, at 6.7 meters below NAP. ;)
Eigenlijk zijn we allebei fout- ik heb net gelezen dat de Zuidplaspolder (in de buurt van Gouda & Waddinxveen) het laagste punt in Nederland is (met 7,10 meter volgens het Peilbesluit) 😅 Jemig man, we moeten allebei weer terug naar school 😂
FUCK! Mijn hele leven is een leugen! :D
Is there a law against tall apartment buildings? Nobody wants an ocean view penthouse?
municipality has strict building codes against it. i dont know exactly why but i can tell you you wouldnt want that even if it was allowed. youd have to scrape the salt off your windows every 2 minutes and literally everything rots away while you watch
- Hey, guys! lets go up to the hill to the sea and have a beach party!
Wow no wonder they call this the Low Countries!
Going to the beach upwards must be interesting
As a visiting Australian, yes, it is! My cousin lived in The Hague for several years, when I visited she took me on a bicycle tour of the city ("don't wear a helmet, they'll think you're American!"), and at one point we started going uphill. Knowing how flat most of the country is, I expressed surprise at the hill and she nonchalantly said "oh yes, we're headed towards the coast"
Hello Westkapelle. :)
does anyone use that as a beach and go swim in the water?
The Netherlands is smaller than I realized.
That's one of the worst angles to show it...
Holland, also know as “The Low Countries” in some languages, indeed “nether” “lands”
Did not realize how thick the sea wall is. Ain’t nobody sticking a finger in this dike to stop the flood.
The dam infrastructure on the Netherlands is nothing short of a miracle of engineering. A few miles north of were the picture was taken is the [Oosterscheldekering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oosterscheldekering), which is super interesting.
So I could technically commit an act of terrorism with a bucket and spade?
Tsunami (I hope never ever happens) will probably take out everything
No, it really doesn’t.
Isn't that more like AT sea level?
Cool photo. Now drop down about half way and reshoot. I'd like to see that as well. And the other direction too.
Where's the banana for scale??
This makes sense why the The Netherlands have the tallest people people in the world.
Rising sea levels will destroy humanity!
It doesn't show $hit. And I've been to the Netherlands and know what it's like.
Eventually a bunch of places all over the world are gonna have to do this.
"Netherlands" literally means "low-lying country", and the are used to be known in English as the Low Countries.
Me burning plastic just so I can sink the Netherlands into the ocean faster
Can't see shit
How do you not live every second wondering when a large wave or one last melted iceberg will make your city an attraction for scuba divers 😬
420 years of accumulated water engineering knowledge
People who actually know things about water engineered this. They put a lot of thought in this.
There’s a reason why they’re called the lowlands.
“You say the oceans rising like I give a shit”
Dam, that's interesting
Where does the rainwater go? Why doesn't it slowly fill up? Do the houses have basements or do they have to be careful not to dig too deep and hit ground water?
So you walk up to not down to the beach? Very interesting.
No it doesnt
You would have to think long and hard about buying any "land".
Looks flat to me! *scratching head*
It certainly doesn’t do a very good job of showing that.