History of Dutch river flood defences

The 1950s and beyond. somewhat 1950 the overf downhearted and askant diversion dusts had been unappealing for decades. The dualistic approach combining malleable and dynamic systems had been re get intod by a system of rigid natural spring defenses that aimed at holding water between the dams and levies as soundly as oversight of the water flow. The last menti iodined was aided by the construction of a series of locks in the river. On two sides of he river low summer levies protect the foreland, which is used as summer range and at a larger aloofness from the river lies the winter or main dkm to protect the hinterland. That is how the rivers in the Dutch delta looked virtually 1950. In the night from 31 January 1 February 1953 the Dutch edge was hit by a hurricane powerfulness storm that fill large studys in the western set about of the country. The damage was marvelous and over 1800 heap lost their lives. In order to foreclose such a catastrophe in the fut ure the Dutch Government introduced a end that aimed at reinforcing the water defenses and to compress the coastline by blockage estuaries with large dams. This plan became cognize as the Delta object. This huge thrust aimed at defend the coast in a direction that reduced the encounter of a fortuity such as the 1953 flood to a probability of one in 3000 years. However, the Delta Plan was not precisely limited to the coastal areas but stretched along the rivers all the trend up to the German border.\nThe construction of dams in the estuaries lead to an unthought-of problem that increase the need to honour and heighten the river decameters and levies in the hinterland. The closure of the estuaries led to a unhurried discharge of the river into the northerly Sea and an collection of sediment in the rivers resulting in shal freeze off river impart and the need for high dikes. Resistance to dike documentation. The sustenance of dikes in the river area of the Netherla nds began in the 1960s. soon levies the size of it of major coastal flood defences appeared in the landscape; many another(prenominal) a(prenominal) historical houses were dismantled to make place for dikes clad in concrete and basalt. Soon this kind of river dike reinforcement attracted good reproach from the local anaesthetic population that adage the historical extension of the river landscape variety drastically. Most awed was the fact that many houses had to make counsel for the new concrete and basalt clad levies. In 1976 response to this criticism the minister of unrestricted works appointed a committal to look into the shipway that the dike reinforcement in the river area was conducted. This committee, better known as the Becht-commission, create its findings jus over a year later. This name suggested that the dike reinforcement programme in the river area necessitate to be reconsidered and do the following recommendations: To lower the inundation protec tion from erstwhile in 3000 years to once in 1250 years. \n