How the Netherlands Helps Other Countries With Their Water Problems 

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The Dutch motto is: ‘Ruimte voor de rivieren’. The translation is something like: ‘Giving space to the rivers’. Don’t fight the water but live with it in harmony.

One story that might be interesting, is the work of 11 so called "watermen" in Japan from 1872 untill 1903. They designed waterworks: improving harbours, waterways, introducing the Japan Standard (Tokyo Peil), improving the distribution of fresh water, etcetera. Their work is still appreciated by the Japanes, resulting in statues, monuments and plays. Some of the names: Cornelis van Doorn, Johannis de Rijke, George Arnold Escher (father of the famous Maurits Cornelis Escher) and Anthonie Rouwenhorst Mulder. Wikipedia has some information, Louis van Gasteren made a book and film (2002) In een Japanse stroomversnelling.

England, most of Lincolnshire was under water until Dutch engineers started draining the marshes in the 17th century

The dutch saved the world trade once again This video is so underrated this deserves more

You forgot the Dutch polders in The Fens in the UK, in Zuławy in Poland, Saint Petersburg in Russia and the entire water infrastructure of Japan (canals, embankments, levies, ports, polders, improvement of natural waterways, etc). Even in countries without water Dutch engineers have played an important role in constructing infrastructure. For instance much of the infrastructure of Saudi Arabia was built by the Dutch (ok, perhaps this one we shouldn't be proud of...).

Another Dutch project, in another way involving water: Boyan Slat has been busy since he was 16 yrs old to clean the oceans & rivers of plastic & garbage. He started project "Ocean Cleanup" in 2012 to get 90% of all plastic out of the oceans. Much of that ends up there after being dumped in rivers. So far almost 1 million kilos in plastic and garbage has been removed by his non-profit company!!! Also huge ghost fishing nets that were abandoned, lost, dumped and pose a major problem for creatures living in the oceans. He now also has found ways to do things with all that plastic, like designer sunglasses, boxes to hold make-up remover pads and so on. So another Dutch thing to be very proud of, to do with water, but entirely different.

Excellent video and I just discovered. I can attest to what this says about the Netherlands. When I lived in Scotland, they export smoked salmon to the Dutch so they know their aquaculture for sure! Also I went on a school trip there to look at their dams and water management which are probably the best in the world. What's more I live in London now near the Thames barrier, which is a anglo-dutch construction! Thank you Netherlands

Water: exists Netherlands: and I took that personally

One very import project that isn’t mentioned in the video is the project in Venice, Italy. To save the beautiful city, Dutch engineers build a special water barrage that stops the laguna from flooding.

my uncle Professor Yassir Baas was educated at DELEFT tech institute and is now minister of Irrigation in Sudan's transitional government

Another project which wasn't mentioned (and is rather smaller in scale and honestly quite embarrasing) was the fact that the Lisbon Metro extension to Santa Apolónia, a low-lying section of the city following the river Tagus, was delayed for over 12 years due to repeated floods and land subsidence from the river's floodplains. Guess what, the Dutch were called in to help and, with their expertise, the project was finally concluded without further incidents.

It is indeed surprising that so much of the Netherlands is below water. I’m currently studying a TU Delft and indeed I see a lot of talent here that are very knowledgeable about water management.

I love how you don't use tons of stock footage like other channels

My father works for "van Oord" as a captain of an bagger ship. Lately he has just been deepening ports like hamburg and gdansk but he also helped the English with constructing Dutch like water defenses near Portsmouth (I think it was). I also know he was in Mombasa for awhile in 2012-2014 or something

Interesting video, thank you. Dutch civil engineering for water management is by far the best in the world, because the nation relies on it to survive, being mostly below sea level. Another surprising fact is that this small country is the second largest food exporter in the world, behind the USA, all from an area only slightly larger than Maryland.

I'm studying Geography and Planning at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and we will actually go to Charleston SC with a small group to study the Dutch Approach there. But yeah the Netherlands are great at water management and general spatial planning simply born out of need as water has always been a threat and space very scarce. Literary every square metre in the Netherlands is planned

Thanks for the kind words about my country and nice video mate!

Excellent job on the research into the suggested points from that community post and turning it into yet another video you can't stop watching! I'm glad we could all help you with this. :)

even Our King William. studied water management. And is occasionally a pilot at KLM. Willem, you should definitely continue like this!

Egypt did it all by itself, with a little help. Maybe that's the power of the Netherlands, giving advice where needed, some technology, cooperate with local companies and authorities, making things work, without taking all credits. Let countries be proud of what they achieved, with a little help. Thanks for another great video!

6:30 . I’m a Dutchman so maybe I’m a bit biased, but this is typical for Dutch people 😅. Just simple pragmatic thinking. I could totally hear a Dutch guy saying the exact sentence in a meeting.

Great video, thank you!

Look back further. In the 17th and 18th century Dutch engineers worked on water control projects all over europe including Russia. Tsar Peter went to the netherlands before Developn op NV at Petersburg with help from Dutch engineers.

I was excited for this video ☺️

I had been looking for a video like this a few months ago. Was happy to come across it now!

I actually study at the WUR so it is nice to be seen! Great video as always, hope your channel keeps growing

great clip. dank:)

Actually the salvaging was done by the previous Smit Salvage (and before that Smit Tak) part of Boskalis. Boskalis itself is a giant in dredging and can be found all around the world. Their employees will often be away for months at a time to Africa, Asia, Latin America, and so on. Boskalis' offices are mostly located in the Rotterdam area. The Netherlands also has a big player in moving uncommon materials over land. The famous one is Mammoet (Dutch for mammoth), with their main office on the north shore of the Beneluxtunnel near Rotterdam. And then there's the process of maintaining water ways. Often done with special ships. The main player of producing those ships is Royal IHC. Which regularly receives contracts from around the world and which has offices around the world. The main office is in Kinderdijk though, which is in the Rotterdam area. By the way, Kinderdijk is also famous for its windmills.

11:01 so weird seeing an old picture of the campus, where the tower I'm typing this out in hasn't even been built yet..

Great video. Nice to see Cork included!

Wonderful presentation on (some) Dutch contributions to the world's water challenges. But then again, when you've lived for the best part of a thousand years with water threats from two sides (sea and upstream flooding), you get to learn a few tricks of the trade. NL is the only country in the world with its 'Rijkswaterstaat'; or state water status. All told an amazing story.

Haha, as a WUR graduate who just started an internship at Arcadis I feel some heavy expectations! Interesting vid :)

Great video. BTW my father (and some large Dutch companies) was involved in land winning and water protection in Cartagena Colombia (land win) / Ecuador (harbor dikes and locks) / Suriname (locks) / Paraguay (river management) , also one of the biggest polders in Holland (Flevoland). And some advising work in Indonesia (I think it was dredging). And more works here in Holland on canals and coast work. I even worked there as vacation work in the 1970's. They would build dikes and pump out water and grow crops of reed, to dry it. We, as his children, were moved around the globe to where he went. I liked this work but went for another profession. For him it was sad I did not follow his steps.

The flooding in Europe last summer hardly damaged anything in the Netherlands, only some crops and maybe a few cows were lost that were planted in the area reserved for incidental flooding. I heard about one cow even made it back, I hope it will be spared from the butcher. Maybe some wet feet in some places but overal we did pretty well compared to other countries. There’s a project called “ruimte voor de rivier” where we make room for the river to flow over when it needs to. Some parts were financed by letting the contractor sell the gravel they dug up. So no costs for the tax payer and a nice profit for the contractor. That’s how we roll...and we have a nice piece of nature extra because the riverbed is broadened and deepened. So the animals win too. Yeah!!

Great video!

Great docu you've made. Very well put together. The Netherlands were kings of the seas in Ocean going seatugs for most of the last century. Still great,but now also highly specialised in special transport overseas,drenching and extreme offshore heavy lifting. The biggest liftcrane belongs to the Heerema company that can lift whole drilling riggs onto it's foundation. Here in The Netherlands the rivers are the main danger,because we're at the end of the river Maas,Rijn and Lek. Huge projects have recently been run to give the rivers more room to run. Now big projects are underway to collect and store rainwater to prefent water shortage during summer after 2 recent dry years.

3 am I wake up. Forgot setting a timer on the audiobook I’m listening. Then I see there a new video of Geography Geek. Stupid enough I decide to watch it. And now I’m totally awake. But it was very interesting as usual.

Great report... I learned long time ago that in the South West of England there are planes ( areas ) which are more then 100 years ago rearanges by Dutch engineers to get rid of water and made agriculture possible. Every no and then a camera crew flies in there to shoot commercials for the Dutch Broadcasting companies... because there will no pass to many motorbikes, airplanes, cars etc. It is realy looking like a Dutch polder, but without the action...! Do not forget our civil engineering pioneers Leeghwater ( empty water, wat is in a name) and Lely. Therefore is named a modern city Lelystad. Great video, Anyon D Geerling, The Netherlands

really informative - great job

Great vid!

Great video👌🏻 and also nice to see Wageningen my birthplace being mentioned.

I studied at Wagening's baby sister, the Van Hall Institute (4 year BSc courses in Environmental Sciences, Animal Management, Agriculture and the likes). I followed a course on watermanagement when i was studying there. There were 3 Dutch students and about 12 non-Dutch students, mostly from Europe but als a few from the Americas. Our teacher took us to an area not too far from where i grew up. We walked out on one of the polder 'ring dikes', which basically holds a broad waterway that is used for both shipping and water management. He didn't say anything for a while. Then we started hearing the first surprised gasps from the foreign students. With one remark 'How do they sleep at nigh?!?' while pointing down at the farm next to the dike. So there was this body of water to our left, about 30 cm below the top of the dike. Then there was a farm about 3 meters lower, at the foot of the dike, to our right. Us Dutch students just shrugged and said 'Soundly, I suppose? Why wouldn't they be?" None of us had ever thought about sleeping at night with a body of water somewhere near by 'towering' over us - but that's basically what living in a polder is. It took the amazement of foreigners to make us realise how special our low-lying country actually is, with the whole system of ditches, waterways and pumps making sure we keep our feet dry and our crops growing. This i think also explains our enormous export in agricultural produce. Whenever I go through another country, i'm always surprised there are no ditches in the croplands. Not only do the ditch drain excess water, in times of drought we can reverse the pumps (drawing from large open fresh water bodies) and keep the water table stable for the crops. This is far more efficient than water cannon spraying the soil as that evaporates quickly.

Thanks for the great video of our great little country

I miss mentioning of the sand motor. (zandmotor). With the rising of sea levels a very important project. They have used the tides to enlarge a beach bringing more safety to the dunes on the west coast of Nederland from storms.

So nice to see pictures of my city (Almere) :-D - born and raised ~3 meters below sea level :-D

Im dutch happy you made the video and we never mind to assist ore help other countrys.

The Netherlands always saves the day

I didn't go to Wageningen myself, but it's such a unique and important university! I honestly think it is the most important university for the future of humanity, seeing how they focus on sustainable and extreme agriculture, drinking water and the likes, as well as practical solutions. Their will prevent millions of climate refugees

Great video, much I didn't know!

Please make a video on how maps are made with no past maps, and if tribes used maps/how they compare! Great video!

The Netherlands now have the biggest Sea lock in the world.

I was working in poland for 2 years where we deepend and widend the fairway to stettin and with the material we build two island in stettin lagoon Also a dutch project

I'm proud to be Dutch and living in Zeeland. Great video.

Thanks for the great work. This small yet immensely significant country in our world never fails to fascinate me anew. I often find myself in the Netherlands, and I must say, hats off, the infrastructure and progress are unparalleled. But most of all, what I love about this beautiful country is its friendly people and the combination of super modern and traditional elements.

Many older projects can stil be seen in the 'Waterloopbos' where research was done for many decades. Since a few years the site has been turned into something of an exhibition. Both Dutch and foreign projects can be found there!

He man eindelijk een goede review over ons land (Hey finely a good review about our land)

"God made the earth, but the Dutch made the Netherlands"

I enjoyed this. So I subsrcibed and liked.

I love your video's! Would you consider to release your video's as a podcast on all the podcast channels? I think many of them will fit that well without any adjustment

There are some really great ideas there

At the map at 3:08 you forgot the Ijssel and the Amsterdam-Rhine Canal

Great video! One comment on your info. @8:54 one of the polders isn’t realized. Keep up the great video’s

Graag gedaan

as a Dutchie. i'm hesitant to feel proud for mega corps like boskalis. but the sharing of knowledge..everyone deserves drinking water and dry feet.

Nice video Helping out the italiens now with there beaches south of venice at this very moment

MS Herald of Free Enterprise was salvaged by Smit-Tak. This ferry capsized in 1987, 193 people lost their lives.

+1 because u added a picture of the old "gemaal de leyens" where i grew up!

I have got no right what so ever to be proud to be dutch, other than the knowledge , the dutch export all over the world in waterprojects, agriculture and dutch design. It is wonderfull to see how it all comes together in the cities and countries as seen in this video. I still remember the flooding of New Orleans, just to mention one example, the devastation and the impact it had on all those poor people. So nice to see the help the dutch can give in solving so many problems at once! Yet ..we are warned; to keep finding solutions for rising sealevels in the near future, in the Netherlands, the European coastline and the rest of the world, it is an ongoing battle and we in the Netherlands have to start NOW!!!

The Dutch engineering consultant Ruimt Voor De Rivier designed a new water course for the Don River in Toronto, Canada. It's the first stage of a multibillion dollar reclamation project in Lake Ontario, ongoing right now.

Glad we could help :)

Everyone failed to mention Maasvlakte and Maaasvlakte 2, both were needed to keep Rotterdam a competitive harbour

Very enlightening! I actually wondered about how the Dutch were making an impact with these kinds of projects, especially when seeing how badly Bangladesh needs similar water works and land reclamation.

I LOVE YOU HOLLAND, NEDERLAND ❤❤🇳🇱🇦🇲❤❤

Ha! I thought I recognized that VOC stone sign. It's located in Hoorn on the old coin mint located on the street 'onder de boompjes'

The Dutch companies involved for making potable water are helping indeed similar companies in many countries with practical advice and training.

I am studying in the technical university at delft right now, but in aerospace not civil engineering

Its a honor for me to hear this i feel honord to hear this im netherlands(nederlands)

Funny to see the tiniest most insignificant pump of my insignificant city (Zoetermeer) been featured on this video. The Leyens Gemaal, which is roughly 1500 meters from where I live. Enjoyed the video and it makes me proud to see fellow Dutchman have saved many lives from potentially being claimed by climate disasters. While I live a few meters below sealevel, I do feel safe here.

1) Yes, we Dutch do have experience in handling water. But so do our neighbors. 2) We Dutch, too, tend to equal "polder" to "land reclamation". Wrong. A polder is an entity of water management, and it can (often) happen to be reclaimed land. Reversely, reclaimed land doesn't need to become a polder. Examples: reclaimed (by draining) and polder: Haarlemmermeer, the lake that features Schiphol Amsterdam Airport; reclaimed (by building dikes): coastal parts of Groningen province and adjacent Germany; reclaimed, not a polder: Maasvlakte (1 & 2), the westernmost parts of the Port of Rotterdam (reclaimed by moving sand from the sea bed onto the site); not reclaimed, yet a polder: Vondelpark, the most famous park in Amsterdam. Well, it wasn't the best stretch of land when purchased by the developers of the adjacent "better off" areas, but they rose that land by applying sand, rendering the Vondelpark something like a drain pit; not reclaimed, not a polder (but land): roughly the Southeastern half of the Netherlands. Oddity: the Sloterplas lake (in the West of Amsterdam) used to be a polder, with much (and much needed) good sand underneath, so it was turned into a deep (for diving) recreational lake. I know at least two more examples. Besides, many Dutch lakes had originated or expanded by winning turf.

5:00 pumping water out with energy that will make the use of these pumps increase, (check the black fume from the exhaust pipe)

My parents actually both attended the university of Wageningen when they were younger. They didn't go into architectural engineering (my mom became a plant breeder and my dad an archeologist), but they definitely did have good education there (also it's pronounced more like Waa-khe-ning-un)

from the late 90s till he ascended to the throne, even our king (Willem-Alexander) was working as a water management specialist.

Thanks for this content! As a Dutch man I am very happy studying about what we do best. Dankuwel mijn beste kerel! Our own news agencies don’t even tell me this? Like no wonder we got no nationalism here. Suppose we are just to ‘humble’

Its very cool that without the Nederlands that boot was very longer stuck:) and that the Nederlands lay under the sea but don’t stand under water 🤩

There's a small forest in the polder now open to tourists, Waterloopbos. It houses many interesting small scale experiments and tests on water management and engineering for projects both domestic and all over the world. Gives a glimpse at how the dutch work. Water goes where the mind doesn't. In other words, there's always going to be some oversight you can find and fix by flooding a miniature defense and watch reality run its course, before investing in a multi billion dollar solution.

I'm proud of us, we did it guys, Americans know who we are

I live in the Netherlands it's a beautiful country where we can be who we want to be that is really nice (me as a girl can go to school and do what I want) but unfortunately we live under really much pressure of the climate change. Our rivers overflow and the sea takes in more and more land. I personally worry about that and my future here if we don't do anything. Yes we are pretty good with water and I am proud about that. We saved much of Zeeland a province in the Netherlands because of our good work with water. En voor de Nederlandse mensen hier. WEES TROTS OP ONS LAND!!! By the way: don't be mad if something's wrong I am only 12.

fun fact, these days we use 'polders' to combat climate change. One of the issues we are dealing with is due to climate change the soil gets dried up very fast in regions. So we flood polders to act as sweet lake basin. One of the examples is the driemanspolder. Which sits somewhere near the Hague. It used to be a polder as land, but now it has become an internal lake to fill the need in the 'randstand' region in case we run out of sweet water.

Hi. Great video. I'm also interested in making this kind of videos, with a lot of visual support for my viewers. Could you tell me what resources are you using for video and images? Thanks

Very interesting analysis about the Dutch cooperation?!

interesting!

Very intresrijg

8:33 on the picture in the corner stands "picture of the city Amsterdam Netherlands

Somerset area England a few hundred years ago.

Fun fact; if your city is interested in urban planning or water management, the Dutch government has official ambassadors for these topics, that will come over anywhere in the world and talk about it for free. They can connect you to universities, research instututes, expertise bureaus and engineering firms. Obviously, this is done with the expectation that there will be some money in it long term. But water management is a lot cheaper than well, not doing water management. So its a win-win really.

Truly a great video, I had no idea that Netherlands had such a history beyond simply that East India Tea Company. Thank you :)

Yes and will the states and central government will invest in the water defense.

Not much about Geography, but certainly a place where the Dutch left their mark on the world: Dejima/Deshima. A former Portuguese trading post that was run by the Dutch that was, for more than 200 years, the only (official) contact Japan had with Europe and later the USA

Wow