Name: Why The Netherlands Isn't Flooding (Anymore)
Uploaded: 2022-03-15T11:55:03.000Z
Duration: 17 min 43 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

The Delta Works are one of the Seven Modern Wonders, They are the largest system of flood

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defences in the world, and they are currently being used as the template for many countries

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on how they should defend themselves against rising sea levels.

But how could such a small country construct one of the most advanced flood defences?

To answer this, let's take a look at its history.

The Dutch had been building dams and dike and other flood defences for millenia.

In fact, the first settlers of the Netherlands built their settlements on hills because of

They are called 'the low countries' afterall.

And the first dams, dikes, and dunes created by the Dutch were built in the 8th century.

But as the Netherlands grew richer and more populous, the flood defences wer improved.

In the 1930's the Netherlands constructed the longest dam in the world, the Aflsuitdijk,

to protect the central region of the Netherlands against floods.

You can watch my video on that after this one by clicking on the link at the end of

Now that that project was completed, the Dutch government started looking into plans to dam

off the south-western part of their country as well, right here in Zeeland.

Which is the Zeeland that makes New Zealand 'New'.

But they weren't able to make significant progress because the Netherlands was busy

being invaded by Germany and after the war the Dutch government prioritised rebuilding

But then everything changed when the North Sea attacked.

In the night from the 31st of january to the 1st of February, exactly 67 years ago in 1953,

a storm hit the Netherlands with a ferocity rarely seen in this part of the world.

Because it was the 50s in Europe, many radio stations, weather stations, and emergency

So when the warning was sent out that evening of an incoming flood, there was nobody there

to listen to it… until they heard the water rushing through the streets, dragging away

While this area was protected by dikes, they simply weren't strong enough to withstand

They were designed for the smaller regular floods occuring in the Netherlands.

But this storm broke the coastal defences in 67 locations, with holes up to 3.5 km wide.

In total, 1836 died in the netherlands, 70.000 people became homeless, and 200.000 farm animals

The news broadcast the next morning proclaimed “The sea needed just a single night, to

20 days after the flood, the Dutch government created a team of experts tasked with looking

into ways of tackling the problem of the netherlands constantly flooding.

They called this team of experts: the Delta Committee.

Afterall, the Dutch had already created a large dam just 20 years earlier.

While the South-west of the Netherland was being flooded, the people behind the Afsluitdijk

They already had the technology, they now have the willpower, all that was needed was

But some of you might be wondering why they called it the Delta works.

Well, the region through which most of the flood came in is called the 'delta region'

because 3 different rivers end in this region: Meuse, Schelde, and Rhyne.

So the Delta Works is named after the Delta Committee and the Delta committee is named

The committee spent over 2 years gathering data and setting up the Delta Plan.

Over those 2 years they presented 5 points on how The Netherlands should improve its

In total, the costs were estimated to be about 2 billion Guilders, which is about 6.5 billion

Afterall, humanity possesses far better technology, far more resources, and far more abundant

But 2 billion guilders in 1955, was a tremendous amount of resources to devote on a single

In fact, this was about 13% of the entire Dutch economy at the time.

To put the scale into perspective, if the Netherlands would try to spend a similar amount

of their GDP on a project today, it would be about 120 billion Euro.

That's enough money for the Netherlands to fund 3 missions to Mars all on their own,

including all the Research, Development, and infrastructure… at least with Mars the Dutch

Now the analyses were completed, the plan had been laid out, and the costs had been

It was time for parliament to vote on the Delta Works.

With a landslide victory for the Delta-law in parliament, it passed through the senate

in 1958, and a day later was signed into law with the signature of Queen Juliana.

You can't do everything all at once, the Netherlands simply lacked the resources to

And so the decision on where to start came when the committee published their 2nd suggestion:

they concluded that the lowest point of the Netherlands, near Rotterdam, was also the

most likely to flood and the most deadly with 3 million people living behind that dike in

cities like Rotterdam, Delft, and the Hague.

In fact during the flood, a hole did get into the dike.

Whenever people tried to throw bags of sand in the dike to plug it, the water would immediately

Realising the imminent danger they were facing, the local mayor convinced a local merchant

captain to use his 18 meter ship to plug the 15 meter wide hole.

Because of the bad weather the ship might get blown away again.

So he rammed the ship into the dike, giving rescue workers just enough time to fill the

Without their efforts, millions of people might have become homeless, rather than 'just'

And you can visit the monument they put there in honor of this captain and the rescue workers.

And so when the Delta Committee published their findings on just how vulnerable this

area was, the local governments immediately funded the flood barrier which the committee

had suggested, without waiting for the national government to approve funding.

They built it right here, at the Algerabridge.

The flood barriers would be hoisted above the river to allow ships to pass underneath,

but can be lowered into the river in case of a flood.

Next came the largest part of the project.

You see, Zeeland was basically a collection of islands, resulting in around 700km of shoreline

which needed to be protected with 700km of dikes.

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Why The Netherlands Isn't Flooding (Anymore)

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infrastructure