🌊 A look at some of the most impressive flood control projects on Earth
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Do the Dutch really have the rest of the world outclassed when it comes to waterworks?
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Huge thanks to Frauke Hoss and Kim Berghout for help with Dutch pronunciations.
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Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6fBPdu8w9U
Video by Grady Hillhouse
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48 Comments
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Hi Grady, thanks for this episode. I am proud to be a member of Rijkswaterstaat, in charge of forecasting systems for floods and storm surges. I often use the quote: "the Netherlands, a land defined by water". Impression of different aspects can be found on https://youtu.be/CeDOUujOiuk
Cheers.
One of the best short documentaries about my country, from an American. Great job❤
Another 'fun' fact: the maintenance of the dikes etc is done by a separate entity (waterschappen); not by the ruling government. They raise their own taxes and make their own decisions. This is in order to avoid situations where a political joke-party is elected and decides to cut down on maintenance.
Make no mistake: several party's want different things. Farmers want low water levels, that makes farming easier. Home-owners want higher water levels, so the foundation of their (older) homes doesn't rot away (like Amsterdam: built on wooden poles). Nature-lovers want beautiful landscapes, watersportsmen want to cruise everywhere and have easy access to all land. So we vote seperately for the waterschappen.
still waiting for the year sea levels actually rise
I found a real small one of these in Florida! Right in the middle of Disney World. 28°24'46.5"N 81°34'33.7"W
Could New York City incorporate Dutch approaches to sea level rise to protect itself while allowing all uses to continue ?
I was a little tired driving through the Netherlands, but when you are going along the highway and your driving straight towards a ship, before you can double take you've dipped under the water in a tunnel, was quite surreal.
A country with great engineering skills
The world calls the Dutch when it comes to water problem.. The Dutch also resqued the Evergeen ship in the Suez canal.. we do everything what involves water. Oh we also have ASML. Proud to be Dutch.🎉❤
An entire flood control story and not one recourse to the ol' sand table.
Man, you have no clue how proud it is to be dutch after seeing your video. We are so used to all the water works that we more or less take it for granted. Thank you for for the video!
2:00 oh man as a Dutch person that really threw me off guard, its one of if not the best foreign person speak Dutch
Tuning in after a while and got surprised with a beard. Love it btw…❤
Building for a 1 in 1000 year event is fine. But who is to know that a 1 in 2000, 1 in 3000, 1 in 4000, 1 in 5000 etc aren't all going to happen next year?
There’s one of these water bridges in Walt Disney World between Bay Lake and the man-made Seven Seas Lagoon built in 1971. Still amazing to this day.
Does a water bridge experience more stress when a boat crosses or less stress, because the water has been displaced? I am actually curious.
Being Dutch, I still would advice, move to higher ground, it's not sustainable. Especially with raising sea-levels.
We can prevent flooding for a long time, but eventually it'll fail. And it will get more and more expensive.
And more problems will rise, such as inundation. Dry summers will dry out former marshes and the low lying land will sink even deeper.
If something is possible by clever engineering, doesn't mean it's a good idea by default.
That's a big problem in engineering; there is a solution for almost every problem, but where is the end of it if you live in a changing world.
Every solution brings its own set of problems, and soon you'll end up in a quagmire of solutions, red tape, unforeseen consequences and disasters.
Cheers ;o)
As a Dutch Hydraulic Engineer, I have to compliment you on doing your homework. The accuracy of this video and the level of detail is top notch. thank you!
15:41 I've been watching the English dub for Mob Psycho 100 so I can't unheard X OR SIZE
My college engineered that very structure! He's already got his pension but is still working a couple of hours a week to give some advice. He said it was the one he was most proud of. Great person, I learned a lot from him.
Dutch are not famous for waterways! They are famous for the strips of land they maintain between the waterways 😮😅
Is it true that Schiffol airport is actually below sea level?
The Maaslandkering is such a marvel. I watched closing it for the 2023 storm on a live stream. Makes me proud to be Dutch!
"Hier gaan over het tij,
de maan, de wind en wij"
Here the tide is ruled
by the moon, the wind, and us.
About the Maaslandkering: I love telling people that the Dutch coast is defended by a robot with arms the size of the Eiffel Tower. It's true! That thing is fully automated.
Why? Because we will drown if we don’t fight the water successfully.
Do they off a dam tour?
yes.
The Zuiderzee was of course salt water as it was a sea, but when dammed up, it became fresh water, which was ideal for farming. But of course the nature in and around the Zuiderzee changed a lot and fishery is almost gone now.
Kudos for fearlessly pronouncing Dutch names!
The 1953 was one of the worst disasters in modern history of the country, but we have had much bigger and worse floods before the 20th century. Like the Eerste Sint Marcellusvloed (first Saint Marcellus flood) in 1219 AD when 36.000 people died or the the Sint-Luciavloed (Saint Lucia flood) in 1287 AD when between 50.000 and 80.000 people died and the Zuiderzee was formed because of it, which seperate West Friesland from Friesland, which later was conquered by the Lords of Holland, today it is called the province of North Holland, but the nothern area of the province is still called West Friesland.
Where I live, down south, our old village lies 2 km into the sea, our anestors had to rebuild the village at least 3 times, after it was swallowed by the sea.
In the province of Zeeland (Sea land) more than a 100 villages lies beneath the waves due to all the floodings over the centuries. The most famous ones are "Het Verdronken Land van Saeftinghe" (the sunken land of Saeftinghe) and "Het verdronken land van Reimerswaal" (sunken land of Reimerswaal).
Fun fact New Zealand is named after this province btw.
Americans are skeptical about anything non American because they think they’re the best at everything
The Sand Motor is located on the beach at the villages of Monster and Ter Heijde aan Zee in the municipality of Westland.
Well done. An improvement would have been to project the size of The Netherlands over de Katrina disaster area. Just to give viewers an idea of how much of our country is at risk.
It ain't much, if it ain't Dutch… 🙂
The dutch to the ocean; Gib clay
Ocean: ……
The dutch; I didnt hear a no..
This is not an aquaduct, but just a tunnel underneath a river. That is done everywhere, so nothing special about that 😅
I used to have a teacher who was a little boy in 1953 in Zeeland. He would tell stories of the frightening times when the water came. It was awe inspiring to hear about the force of the water, and put in context how proud we can be as Dutch of our engineer ancestors 🙂
I live in Krimpen aan den IJssel, 10 feet belowe sea level and where the first Deltaworks bariers are, build in 1954-58.
Thank you for such amazing video
Well I'm very happy that we brought Dutch engineers to my part of Norfolk England in the 16th Century. If we hadn't I'd still be living in a swamp!
Netherlands looks like a Solarpunk paradise and has great city urbanism. One of the main countries I'd move to if I were to leave Canada
even the big tech companies trust the dutch dikes, Microsoft, Google and Apple data centers are located in the Netherlands way below sea level… they figure the Dutch live there so they will keep the water out. 😉
The Netherlands had no choice but to build dikes. Lives lost were to much!
Or, just don't live in areas that aren't for people building cities.
Eww please no AI imagery.
Eeee! Grady speaking Dutch! 😊 I'm studying Dutch ❤
At 20:25 you say "You could hardly make up a story this divisive". Given Johnson's tenuous grasp of the truth I think you can be fairly certain he did make it up.
Rijkswaterstaat (the water management engineering organisation) has been around since 1798. It's the oldest continuous organisation in the country