Something Weird Is Happening in The Netherlands

Apologies for the pronunciations in this one - I tried my best but it turns out Dutch is bloody difficult!

Climate scientists: "The sea levels will rise and swallow low lying countries." The Dutch: "Hold my joint"

Fun fact: tulips have been initially gifted and introduced to the Dutch by the Ottomans, it is not a native flower which makes it more impressive

I clicked on this video with this thought: "wait wth is happening in my country right now, so amazing that @Thoughty2 would make a video about it?" It turned out to be another video about our watermanagement. Not gonna lie, as a Dutchie I have watched maybe 30 of these kinds of videos, and I still enjoyed it lol. I watched every minute of it.

When you said skiephol I almost choked! I am Frisian (north of the Netherlands) and we have our own language. Skiephol litterally translates to sheepsbutt.

As a Dutch water management engineer from South-Holland, this video makes me feel proud!

As a Dutchy I would like to explain why we make land out of the sea. When belgium and luxembourgh were still ours we asked France for more land , they said "NON!" we asked germany for more land they said "NEIN!" That only left the sea , so we asked the sea for extra land and we didn't hear a no.

We can also divert water all the way from the IJsselmeer to the higher (above sealevel) agricultural areas. We just let the pumps turn the other way, so instead of pumping water out, we pump water in. We can't use seawater, but IJsselmeer water has lost enough salinity to work in dry summers. It's not only the polders created on former seabed that's nutritious, also the lands alongside rivers that used to (and in some cases still do) flood at high river water levels is fertile. In other areas there used to be swamps, which were drained, then peat was mined until it was all gone and again there would be (ancient) seabed or riverbed clay available for farming. However in South Holland especially they never dug the peat out - they're grazing cows and sheep on thin layers of soil growing grass, on top of peat layers. Buildings are piled and when the water is drained or the summer is dry, the peat starts to contract, causing the pilings to shift or even rot (they are preserved because they're below the general water table). Some of the dikes are so called peat-dikes, especially around long canals dug through the landscape to connect different cities and ports in the 1800's and earlier. When the waterlevel in these canal is raised by excessive rain, it permeates the peat in the upper layers of the dikes. This can hold for a number of days. If the water level in the canals stays too high for too long, the dike will become waterlogged and start seeping water. That will eventually wash out enough material for the dike to breach. Both too dry and too wet situations are happening more and more as in the inlands of Europe, the sources of our river system, there's more and more rain falling and less and less snow. Snow melt in spring would mean a gradual influx of water. Now every time north-western mainland Europe gets torrential rain, we need to get pumping like crazy in order to keep our feet dry. If you look at the map of Switserland, Germany and Belgium you'll notice that most of the rivers drain to the North Sea through The Netherlands. P.s. Maaslandkering was used for the first time outside testing last December. We had lots of areas with already high water in the inland areas due to rain, and the prevailing wind off the North Sea plus high tide would mean too high water tables. So the floating bits came out autonomously until the high water risk had passed, and then retracted. I think it was the first time ever that all the storm surge protection barriers, along the entire Dutch coast, were used within the same 24 hr period.

As a Dutchman i was about to make fun of all the name pronunciations and then he goes on to pronounce Gouda correctly...

As a Dutch civil engineer I'm beaming with pride right now, even though I ended up in a totally different field.

Fun fact: It was in the 16th century that tulips were imported to Holland from the Ottoman Empire (present-day Turkey). Just a few years after arriving in Holland, tulips became the most sought-after commodity in the entire Netherlands.

The 14th century 'wooden platform with an iron blade' wouldn't let you 'spin around like a prat in public'. The way they're constructed would let you go straight ahead or around curves, but they're very very different from ice hockey / ice dancing skates. They are still produced as 'Friese doorlopers' - 'Friesian walk-ons'. I learned to skate on them as a child.

"...so they designed a dam so damning it would doom the sea to eternal damnation." Absolutely love that line!! 😂

“How the Dutch Defeated the Ocean” was the original title 😅

“This Airport used to be under water”😮 …they had pretty tough planes back then!

Not trying to flex or anything but that’s my country

As a Dutch person, you’ve taught me more about my country then I’ve learned in school all those years

Don't forget the terps (terpen), man made hills used to keep our churches, farm houses, store houses and communities dry during floods. The city i live in is built on 3 big terps over 800 years old, they were expanded over time and eventually interconnected. There is one street with 17th century buildings that were made too tall for the terp to support causing the buildings to start sinking, combined with a street level that kept rising due to a build up of trash, the first floor of these building have been almost completely underground for the last century and they just moved the entrance up a floor.

Arran, you made barely a passing reference (a bicycle parking garage) to Dutch bicycle infrastructure, something that is truly extraordinary. Like their committment to sea water management, their committment to safe bicycle infrastructure is a phenomenon, in itself.

Love the videos mate. I’m a long time subscriber in Victoria Australia, and am constantly fascinated by your interesting and really well researched content. Keep up the good work mate.