Bart Schultz
The cultural role of water management is also reflected in many names of cities and villages in the Netherlands. The most obvious examples are of course Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The name 'Amsterdam' means "dam in the mouth of river Amstel". Rotterdam is named after a dam in the mouth of the peat river Rotte. Other examples include Edam, Volendam, Appingedam and Albasserdam.
There are even more toponyms that refer to hydraulic engineering phenomena such as dikes, polders, rivers, sluices (zijlen) and canals (weteringen). Just think of Achterdijk, Achtersloot, Achterwetering, Aduarderzijl, Akersloot, Alphen aan den Rijn, Andijk and Anna Jacobapolder. And I'm only talking about names of places that start with an A!
The importance of water and water management for the Netherlands is also expressed in many family names, such as Van Dam, Van Dijk, Donkersloot, Groenendijk, Hoogendijk, Poldervaart, Van der Molen, Van der Sloot, Van der Sluis, Slootweg, Van de Wetering, Van Zijl, Zomerdijk, and Zwetsloot. Furthermore, the Dutch have many sayings that refer to water management: "if one sheep has crossed the dam, more will follow" - if one person has tried something new, others will follow; “the fence is from the dam” - everyone is doing what they want; “to put someone on the dike” - to fire someone; “that puts sods to the dike” - that is a good measure; “to plug one hole with another” - no solution; “you have had a blow from the windmill” - you are crazy; “to drop from the bank into the drain” - to go from a bad situation to an even worse situation; “to carry water to the sea” - a useless activity.
The role of water and water management is also reflected in urban development. Some historical cities in the Netherlands are fortified cities, which were surrounded by water for protection. At the city gates, such cities were connected to the surrounding land by bridges. Such gates were created because until the middle of the nineteenth century, the vast majority of transport was by water. It was only around that time that the switch to land transport came. There are still many such gates. They can also be seen in a number of famous Dutch paintings.
Water and water management also play an important role in children's books. The best-known story is that of Hans Brinker. When he walked along the dike that protected the city of Haarlem from flooding, among other places, he heard water flowing through a sluice gate or seeping through a dike - there are several versions. Hans sticks his finger in the hole to plug the leak and stays there all night. He is not found until the next morning. He has prevented a flooding. The story has been published in more than thirty languages, and there are statues of Hans Brinker in Harlingen, in front of the miniature park Madurodam in the Hague and in Spaarndam. His action has been used many times in cartoons, animated films and animations. Incidentally, it was not Hans Brinker who plugged the hole, but an unnamed boy who appears in the book Hans Brinker, or the silver skates published in 1866 by the American writer Mary Mapes Dodge.
As for the cities in the Netherlands, an interesting development can be seen over the years in terms of the risk of flooding: the Dutch have started building in increasingly lower areas. Until 1950, the cities and villages in the low parts of the Netherlands were generally built on relatively higher places, sometimes with some landfill. After 1950, there was rapid urbanisation with houses in the deeper polders, but always with landfill to more or less above mean sea level. After around 1970, however, more and more houses and buildings were built in the deep polders with a landfill to approximately one metre above the water level in the polder.
In the early twentieth century, there were concerns about life in the deep polders, especially because of the flooding of New Orleans as a result of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. On the advice of a committee, it was decided to continue building at a low level, but to combine this with the realization of higher safety standards for protection against flooding. The government has recently taken the position that soil and water will be leading in future spatial developments.
The current situation in the Netherlands with regard to water management and flood protection can be described as follows. Firstly, the population has stabilised to a certain extent – urbanisation is continuing. Water quality is managed by integrated water management based on an ecosystem approach. Furthermore, there are concerns about flooding and increasing extreme rainfall. Work is being done to increase design standards for water management and flood protection on the advice of the Delta Commissioner who has now been appointed. Furthermore, automation and energy saving in water management and flood protection are important these days.
What can we expect in the future? Climate change is important, but not the main issue. The main issue and problem is that living and working in areas that are up to 6.5 metres below mean sea level is not sustainable. The Dutch can only do this through dedicated management and maintenance and timely modernization and improvement of the water management and flood protection systems. The key question is: how long will the Dutch society be able to maintain this culturally determined attitude? As a well-known expression in the development of the IJsselmeerpolders was: time will tell.
