Delta Works

  Vrouwenpolder, Netherlands
Saturday, May 26, 2007

A two and a half hour journey by car saw Walter, Matt, Marnie and Adrian venture to Zeeland and the Delta Works.

On 31st January 1953, a massive storm in the North Sea caused major flooding throughout Holland, Belgium, England, Denmark and France. Over 1800 people were killed in the Netherlands, mostly in the southern province of Zeeland, where dikes were broken and large parts of the country were completely flooded.

The Dutch decided to do something about it, including blocking mouths of major estuaries and building artificial islands to change the water flow and prevent future disasters. With over 10,250 miles of dikes (1,500 miles designated as primary dikes and 8,750 miles as secondary dikes) and 300 structures, the project is one of the most extensive engineering projects in the world.


Today was an important vocational day for Walter, seeing this massive engineering project in real life. The engineering principles were quite straight forward and logical, but the enormity of it was hard to comprehend. For a country at threat of virtual extinction if it didn't manage its water flows, the Delta Works are essential for the future of the Netherlands.

Also as a result of the construction, there are large sandy beaches onto the North Sea. Being the start of a long weekend, today they were filled with caravans of German tourists lined all along the foreshore. The Germans are aggressive holiday-makers. Our driver for the day, Hans, noticed a Jaguar towing a rather long caravan and noted it must be Dutch, as the Germans are too sensible to have "such a ridiculous combination).

We were given a personalised tour around the Delta Works (remember this is many miles) by Klaas, a Zeeland civil engineer who worked for 30 years on the project. He subsequently owned the tourist information centre which when it was opened by Queen Beatrix had 600,000 visitors a year.

The Delta Works are a unique part of Holland, but lessons could surely be learnt by other countries, including the USA for coping with Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.