Viewpoint 2008
“GOD CREATED THE WORLD, BUT THE DUTCH CREATED HOLLAND”
Recently I returned from the FIABCI International Congress from real estate developers and agents. This year the Congress was held in Amsterdam for 4 intense days of seminars, speakers, study groups, and net working.
This year the Dutch were our hosts with the appropriate theme of the Congress, “Water, risks, opportunities....”
The Dutch have to be the world’s experts on claiming land from water. In their European country they have the densest population, so it behooves them to add to their nation in the only way possible: reclaim from the sea by creating polders which become inlands upon which they can build their new cities to accommodate their growing population.
Nearly 50% of The Netherlands is protected from flooding by dykes and dams. Also quite a lot of The Netherlands used to be sea or lake bed.
History of Land reclamation
It all started in the 19th Century. The Harlem Lake used to be an area with peat, used as fuel. By digging up the peat, lakes were formed. Due to the prevailing southwesterly wind, the lake grew bigger and bigger, threatening Amsterdam. The Dutch engineers decided to pump it dry and use it as farmland, which seems at first like a particularly stupid idea as it would keep flooding. They solved this by building a wall, or 'dyke', around the lake with a canal, just behind that. Windmills, and later on steam and electric pumps, were used to pump the water out of the lake into the canal which lead via other canals and rivers to the sea. The dry lake bed is called a polder.
This science of creating polders was perfected over the following decades. In the 1950s, the Dutch were tired of the constant floods in the Zuiderzee (South Sea), so they decided to close off the bay in the centre of The Netherlands by building a 70 kilometer long dyke through the sea1. This caused the whole Zuiderzee to become a lake: the Ijsselmeer. At first this was obviously a salt-water lake but through the years it has become a fresh-water lake. In order to meet the need for agricultural ground, they carried on using this technique in the Ijsselmeer and made another lake within it. This was pumped dry and is now Flevoland, the largest polder in The Netherlands, and possibly the world!
After the Second World War, the Dutch started using the polders for cities. Flevoland is one of the biggest growing cities for people who want to live close to Amsterdam.
We were taken to a new city built on the edge of this lake on a polder. The water from the lake is used to cool down the large electric plant which furnishes power to the growing city. The hot water created from cooling down the hot electrical equipment is piped to the city for hot water for cooking and bathing. Ingenuous!
For a more technical explanation, a polder is a low-lying tract of land enclosed by embankments known as dikes, that forms an artificial hydrological entity, meaning it has no connection with outside water other than through man operated devices. There are three types of polders:
- Land reclaimed from a body of water, such as a lake or the sea bed;
- Flood plains separated from the sea or river by a dike;
- Marshes separated from the surrounding water by a dike and consequently drained.
Polders are at risk from flooding at all times and care must be taken to protect the dykes surrounding a polder. Dykes are mostly built using locally available materials and each has its own risk factor: sand is prone to collapse due to over saturation by water; dry peat is lighter than water, making the barrier potentially unstable in very dry seasons.
Some animals dig tunnels in the barrier, undermining the structure; the muskrat is notorious for this behavior. For this reason in the Netherlands it is actively hunted to extinction. No such care is taken in neighboring Germany though, causing the stock to be constantly re-supplied across the border.
The Dutch have created 3,000 polders in the Netherlands to increase the size of their nation. At least half of the polders in the world are in their country.
The first embankments in Europe were constructed in Roman times. The first polders were constructed in the 11th century. Due to flooding disasters water boards were set up to maintain the integrity of the water defenses around polders, maintain the waterways inside a polder and control the various water levels inside and outside the polder.
Still today, locally appointed water boards hold separate elections, levy taxes and function independently from other government bodies. Their function is basically unchanged through this day. As such, they are the oldest democratic institution in the country. The necessary co-operation between all ranks in maintaining polder integrity also gave its name to the Dutch version of third party politics - the Polder Model.
The 1953 flood disaster prompted a new approach to the design of dikes and other water retaining structures; it is based on an acceptable probability of overflowing. Risk is defined as the product of probability and consequences. The damage in lives, property and rebuilding costs is offset against the cost of water defenses. Typical acceptable flood risks from these calculations are 1/10,000 years - 1/4,000 years for flood from the sea, 1/2,500 years - 1/100 years for a river flood. The established policy forces the Dutch government to increase defenses as new data on threat levels becomes available.
The tragedy in New Orleans would have been averted if there had been a similar sound fiscal policy to handle maintenance and repair of the levees. Sadly, the request for funds from both the state and national governments was never addressed without it being a political “hot potato”. No one wanted to take the responsibility for requesting the amount of money which was really needed to prevent the disaster.
Portions of the Interstate 10 high-rise bridge over the mouth of Lake Pontchatrain, east of New Orleans and south of Slidell, have collapsed. Some sections of the I-10 twin span — a lifeline between the south and north shores of Lake Pontchatrain — are missing; others have shifted position but are still standing.
Countries with polders include Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Britain, Saudi Arabia, United States.
As part of our study program, we were taken to new polder communities built outside of Amsterdam. Once such town was Almere (lake). It was named after the early medieval name of the Zuiderzee. The first house in Almere was finished in 1976. In 1984 Almere became an official municipality. Originally, Almere was envisioned as a town with more centers. This idea was later abandoned in favor of allowing neighborhoods like Tussen de Vaarten to be built. There is also a difference between the way houses are built in the oldest and the newest parts of the city. The housing plan in Almere in the 1970s was basic functionality and a leveling of social status. However in the 1990s it became the trend to build more exclusive homes with striking designs.
Almere is one of the youngest cities in the Netherlandshe (Netherlands). In October 2007, the city council of Almere made agreements with the government to expand the city to 350,000 inhabitants by 2030.
Why is it not correct to call the Netherlands Holland?
Zuid-Holland and Noord-Holland (south and north Holland) together form 'Holland'. So when people talk about Holland to the Dutch they are only talking about two provinces out of the 12. It would be like saying to an American 'So you come from Louisiana?', meaning the United States. This is not a nice thing to do and most Dutch will be offended by it.
My experience of learning more about the Netherlands reminds me of how important it is for man to find his little corner of the world. We should never take for granted how precious it is.
The Dutch have certainly learned how to stake their claim.
Harriet Cochran Murray
This article is based upon legal opinions, current practices and my personal experiences in the Puerto Vallarta-Bahia de Banderas areas. I recommend that each potential buyer or seller conduct his own due diligence and review.
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