The Dutch have a saying: “God created the world, but the Dutch created the Netherlands”.
Today we will see why.
The Dutch polders are the largest land reclamation projects in the world, a true marvel of engineering
which added nearly 20% of land to the country, and its fertile land makes the Netherlands
the second largest exporter of food in the world.
In the last episode we looked at how a large dike was constructed to block seawater from
flooding the inner regions of the netherlands.
In this episode we’re going to look at how parts of this inland water area was drained
and turned into fertile land.
While this is part of a series, you don’t need to have watched the first episode to
understand this one.
I try to make my videos as stand-alone as I can.
Ever since the 16th century, large areas of land have been reclaimed from the sea and
lakes, amounting to over 50% of the country’s current land area if you include every lake
ever laid dry.
The process of land reclamation in the Netherlands is mainly done through Poldering.
It is the process of draining water from a lake or by placing dikes around an area of
water and THEN draining it until you are left with very fertile land.
And this is what Lely proposed: build a dike to stop the sea water, then build smaller
dikes inside this newly formed lake, and one-by-one drain the water.
This land was rich in clay, could be settled, and could be farmed, which in turn meant that
the Dutch government could tax them, and make A LOT of money.
To test poldering the Southern Sea itself, they decided to first make a small test polder,
only 400 square meters.
It took about a year and it tested the effects drainage would have on the soil of the Southern
Sea and how best to configure the new polders.
They first built an 18 km dike around the area and then proceeded to pump it dry.
This was performed by a using a variation on the Archimedes’ screw in a pumping station
or a mill.
To make the land suitable for agriculture, a network of ditches were dug in the polder
to channel water towards the pumping stations.
The resulting dehydration caused the seabed to sink by over a meter in some places.
Once the ground was settled, the ditches were replaced with underground drainage tubes.
And while the polder was now dry, it couldn’t be settled yet: the ground was still far too
unstable.
So they then cultivated the land by throwing reed seeds out of airplanes.
This sturdy plant helped evaporate the water and bring air into the soil, thereby solidifying
the land.
Then, basic infrastructure was built such as roads and the fields of reed were burned
and replaced with rapeseed.
When winter turned into spring, the newborn polder would slowly turn into a sea of yellow.
These yellow plants were then replaced with various grains such as rye, wheat, barley,
and oats.
This process took years, but in the end the soil was rich enough to allow the planting
of other crops while roads and housing were being built for the future settlers and farmers.
The later polders were divided into plots of about 50 acres (20 ha).
The best land is used for vegetables; the next best for rye and other grain; and the
worst land is forested.
Each plot has a paved road in the front and a canal in the back to make it accessible
by land and water.
While this test polder was being built, the engineers didn’t simply wait and see.
They decided to continue with poldering other parts of the IJsselmeer and would know if
there was any trouble ahead by looking at the Pilot Polder’s progress.
They started with the Wieringermeer.
This area that would eventually encompass this polder already included several villages,
this presented a new problem for the Dutch government: who did this new land belong to?
the Southern Sea was divided among the mainland municipalities.
This is okay for water area, but now that it was going to be land, splitting up the
responsibility among several government bodies.
So it was decided that this land would be a “public body”, which meant there was
a complicated arrangement where a government body was in charge of working on the polder
and was committee responsible for public governance.
As the polder became more populated, its people demanded representation in politics and so
it became its own municipality on july 1st, 1941.
The next project is the Noordoostpolder, or North East Polder.
Here too, they first built dikes around the area they wanted to lay dry and then pump
out all the water, cultivate with simple seeds to strengthen the ground, then continue with
different plants until you can build roads and farms and eventually being cultivating
the land.
There were two major events related to this polder, however.
The first is that much of its construction occurred under German occupation.
At first they let the work continue unhindered as they wanted to create a polder inside Germany.
But as the war turned for the worse, raids for people in hiding occured, workers were
deported, and before losing the war they blew up parts of the dikes and partially flooding
the land.
Luckily this damage was repaired quickly and the water drained within a few weeks.
The second major occurrence was something unexpected.
You see, this polder is connected to the land.
But the polder is located a few meters lower than the mainland and so, water in the soil
would slowly drain into the polder.
Then that water was pumped into the Southern Sea.
This made the land close to the polder deprived of water and less fertile.
So for the next polder they decided to leave strings of lakes surrounded the new Polder,
called Flevoland.
Flevoland was named after the Roman name for an ancient lake in that area, it roughly means
‘Land of the stream’.
But because the polder would be surrounded by water, they needed a much longer dike,
a 90 kilometer long dike was constructed for the eastern section of Flevoland.
Work began in 1951 but two years later, in 1953, a massive flood hit the south of the
Netherlands, a region unprotected from modern dikes such as the Afsluitdijk.
This was the largest natural disaster to strike the netherlands in its entire history.
This event created tens of thousands of refugees and construction on Flevoland halted until
they could get the south up and running again.
And these refugees needed a place to stay.
Many of them were farmers and many were given plots of land in the new polders, along with
carefully selected farmers from elsewhere in the netherlands.
And when the south was finally safe again, many opted to stay in the new polders.
But Flevoland wasn’t ready yet.
Work on this polder finished in 1957 and it was decided to build a city which could function
as the regional commercial and managerial capital for Flevoland and the North Eastern
Polder.
This city would be called Lelystad, after the man who 70 years prior laid out the plans
to build this prestigious project.
In 1959 the Southern Flevoland Polder began construction and finished in 1968, taking
longer because they only used a single pump to drain an area of 430 KM2.
Due to its proximity to Amsterdam and the Amsterdam Housing Shortage at the time, Flevoland
would get a second city to relieve tension from the capital.
Thanks to motorized farming equipment and artificial fertilizer, farmland had become
a lot less valuable by that time.
So much of Flevoland was turned into housing and nature preserves
Construction on Flevoland officially finished in 1984, when the crucial urban areas were
finished.
Four years later, the polders would become their own province rather than being split
up between the existing one, adding the twelfth province of Flevoland to The Netherlands.
And the last polder was the Markerwaard.
A dike was constructed to prevent minor floods in the Amsterdam region, but construction
was slow, lasting 12 years, twice as long as the Afsluitdijk.
The debate whether to build the last polder dragged on for years: with modern technology
the need for agricultural land had disappeared.
The extra space for housing was no longer needed thanks to the Southern Flevoland polder,
and by this time people took ecological concerns a lot more serious.
So it was decided to leave it as it was to preserve nature and for recreational use.
In 2012 plans were approved to build several small islands here but it would only be accessible
to tourists and birdwatchers.
This project was the largest land reclamation project in history and ended only a few years
before I was born.
It is the dream of one man who, through his engineering genius and political cunning,
was able to save thousands of lives and propel the netherlands as a country famous for hydro
engineering.