Susan's NGTAW Blog: Zaandammerpolder - the Polder Region in North Holland

Biking in the polder region of north Holland

Wednesday, April 20, 2022

We had a nice surprise for breakfast this morning. Karina made Dutch pancakes (thin, like crepes) and poffertjes - small little puffed pancakes that our colleague Joe kept calling "poker chips". Andre drove our van from the Aurora to our parking location at the Haarlem Centraal train station, where we met our guide Willem.

The plan today is to ride north and east to Zaandam, after crossing the North Sea Canal via ferry. From there we will bike to Zaanse Schans, a working skansen with a number of windmills and crafts demonstrations and shops. Total biking will be about 25 km.

We are now in what is considered the North Holland region - the location of amazing civil engineering and hydrology that has reclaimed land from the sea. We would see some evidence of that process in our riding today.

Gathering at the Haarlem train station, making ready for today's biking excursion

Leaving Haarlem and heading out to the open fields - a bit windy today

Canals are everywhere, managing and taming the water

More than half of the Netherlands is at or below sea level. The Netherlands - literally "low country" - has been reclaiming land via drainage and dikes since the 1200's. It sits at the convergence of the North Sea and the deltas of three rivers, including the Rhine. In early centuries, the Netherlands experienced major floods, including the 1287 St. Lucia flood that killed more than 50,000 people.

As early as the seventeenth century, proposals were put forward to tame and enclose the Zuiderzee (Southern Sea). Technology made these proposals feasible in the last century, when the Zuiderzee Works - a man-made system of dams and dikes, land reclamation and water drainage - was undertaken. Led by Cornelis Lely, the project involved damming the Zuiderzee, a large, shallow inlet of the North Sea, and the reclamation of land in the newly enclosed area using polders.

A large dam, the Afsluitdijk (Closure Dam), 32 km long and 7.5 meters above mean sea level, was completed. This dam blocked off the Zuiderzee from two newly formed fresh water lakes, the Ijsselmeer and the Markermeer.

Land reclamation proceeded after damming off the sea, creating large new polders. Portions of the Ijsselmeer were dammed and then water was pumped out. The first polder, Wieringermeer, was created in 1930. Wiki reports that the third polder, Noordoostpolder, was not fully drained until 1942, and it offered numerous hiding places to the Dutch Underground resistance durng World War II.

The map below shows the Zuiderzee works projects.

While waiting for the ferry to cross the North Sea Canal, Willem explains the polders

Illustration of the Zuiderzee Works and the areas of new fresh water lakes and new polder land

The American Society of Civil Engineers declared the Zuiderzee Works one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. In recent years, a large system of dikes has also been built in the river delta areas in south Holland.

A great article, written by Jan H. de Jager in February 2022, describes how the Dutch civil engineering and hydrology approaches could be applied to the US - in Boston, Miami and San Francisco - to stem the rising sea levels from climate change: