Those islands are manmade and used to strengthen those storm surge barriers. Also a company called Center Parks created an holiday resort on one of them. On a different island you can find a waterpark, a aquarium. and a museum where people can learn more about these constructions. They also have some areas that are great for all sorts of animals to live. So all of that new space is being put in good use.

Many of the dots along the river are locations of emergency water storage areas to keep cities dry, if the river including the standard floodzones along the river aren't enough. It mostly is agricultural areas where houses have been removed or rebuilt on mounds so that the emergency flooding of the area doesn't affect these houses.

The maasland kering i was there when it happend , working for the dutch pilots at the time , the entire harbour was flooded 1 meter above the walkways and piers. It was quete the storm.

Watching this makes me proud of our tiny country.

Those islands are man-made, part of the construction. The largest of them is called Neeltje Jans and was also used as a construction base for the pylons that were then floated into position by special, purpose-built ships. There is a museum on Neeltje Jans nowadays about the 1953 flood and the Delta Works that you might consider visiting when you visit The Netherlands (although with all the stuff you guys already have on your list you're probably going to have to apply for temporary residence permits to see it all 😉). Regarding the Maeslantkering, the best way to think of it is this: Storm surge and flood water: "I'm an irresistible force!!" Maeslantkering: "I'm an immovable object. Your call."

3:40 those places had sandbars already in place on which they build the islands. So it was essentially working with what was already there and exploiting it to their best abilities.

@03:30 As stated below they are man made. There were some shallow sandbanks that were used. Just build a dike around it and fill it up with sand does the trick. (a bit simplistic maybe...) @04:09 Here, another method was used. The protruding part (at 10 o'clock) was fully reclaimed on the sea by raising, using suction dredgers further out to sea. After that the harbor was dredged out. It is now a port for the largest container ships. @07:44 No dams are involved. The project is called "Room for the river". So there was a large volume added for high levels in the river to overflow in, thus preventing even higher levels to occur.

All levies are designed to close without any human interference. This is to avoid closing them to become a political decision as it hurts the economy. The only exception is when tests are conducted, but all computers must then be set in a certain mode (test mode) which is a complicated task. When the test is done, the computers are set on normal mode and nobody can interfere anymore. I think the computers give some forewarning time, so that the harbor authorities and ship's captains can anticipate the closure. The delta works by the way, cost more money than the Apollo project to put a man on the moon. Not bad for a country the size of New Jersey (or about). And that was only the coastal bit. Not considering the Room for the River bit. Also in technology (material science and fluid simulation, and the necessary new mathematics, for example) the delta works were more complicated than putting a man on the moon. Still, according to most environmental scientists, we will loose the fight in the next two centuries because of climate change and the resulting sea level rise of between 2 and 20 meters.

They automated it with a good reason: We do not want a human to decide when it should close. A human can not make a good decision: - Do I have family that could be flooded? - How much economic damage is there if I close it? Only a computer can make the right decision.

They always forget the first barier of the Deltaworks build in 1958 near Krimpen aan den IJssel .

Even with all the work we do, nature does manage to catch us of guard . We recently had a pretty big flood, the surprise being it was in the highest part of the country. But even with a lot of damage there were no lives lost, and being a resident of that area, I can say we are already working on making it safe again. i just wonder what is going to happen in other parts of the world like the US where they do not have a system of watertax, for contruction and maintenance of flood defenses. ( hell i remember mentioning it on a US site and the room exploded when I said taxes. )

The Measland keering is indeed impressive. I live about a 15min. Drive from this gigantic work, standing next to the joints you will be amazed by the shear size of them. Makes me proud as a Dutchman and feel save

Nice vid. You should look into additional problems and solution regarding this. As said in the end of the vid you watched, parts of land can be elevated, but the real problems come when sea rises that much, those rivers lay way below sea level, so riverfloods will occur, sluices/locks can't solve

Earthquakes might occur due to the ice on the south pole and Greenland melting. E.g. the ice sheet on Greenland is roughly 2.500 x 1.000 km with an average thickness of 1,5 km. That's a lot of pressure that will be released after it is gone.

If the consensus on climate was right in the 90s, we would be swimming to get groceries in some cities ☝

I love your interest for our little country. Some pretty cool stuff gets made here. Non-related: Texas is the cool part of america (in a non-temperature way). It has like the stereotypical things, and also cool cities like Austin. I realised i said cool 3 times in my comment. (Now 4)

Too bad they didn't talk about how we made a 12th province finished in the 60's and dammed a sea to make it a lake...

The Dutch are called in to save the US cities too. Like new orleans,housten,atlanta,newyork check the Dutch dialogs

I was born on a dike haha 👶🏼 🏡 🌊 1953 was horrible. My grandmother was a kid, she was visiting Zeeland (south area on the coast) for a few weeks and she never swim again. When I was a kid we even had mandatory swimminglessons at middleschool because our country excist 20% or something out of water. Safety first 🤓 I wonder if middleschools still do that. There are many dutch movies about that storm.

Regarding the sea level rise, it's been VERY constant in the time since we started measuring it accurately, which now is 100 to 120 years. No radical changes have occurred...

You started talking about Texas and flooding and the measures like dams, we in the Netherlands have a different approach, you can't fight against water, you have to give it space in a controlled way, the water has to go and it goes somewhere, resistance is futile.

1:32 Yes and no. Technically speaking this system can act and will act without any person ever taking any action. However, since software is made by people and people are imperfect, monitoring and intervention will alway remain a top priority. The system can be closed (or avoided from closing for that matter) at any time. Both automated systems and human involvement are important in this process. End resposibility remains always with us. 2:12 The 3 rivers in Dutch are called (left to right) Schelde, Maas and Rijn

Well if you say that over there is the flash flood capital than watch and learn becouse I've seen that the American motto of just rebuild over and over again just doesn't work. There were some really bad flash floods just a few months ago, towns in Germany and Belgium were almost wiped of the map by the river diverging thru the town center, it was terrible. But becouse of our flood prevention methods our damage was minimal eventhough it were the same rivers.

Because We Can greetings from Amsterdam

Just so you know, the Dutch are heavily involved in helping y'all in Texas.

1:12 yes, the biggest joints in the world can be found in the netherlands

"DAAAAAAMMMMMMMM(n)"

if you love giant machines, it's too bad they didn't show you the two cranes that park there ; Thialf, and Sleipnitz kzfaq.info/get/bejne/arKUobRzytPcgnU.html they are used to lift oil drilling stations onto their sockets, -which they place too. Also another cool Dutch machine company is Mammoet, which hauls impossible huge loads from here to there

I'm Dutch, I've never experienced a flood

A Texan bloke that likes things that are big, massive and huge.... well I be damned!

The duch have helpt theAmerikans

6:57 Just ask the people who live on land that regularly suffers from earthquakes due to natural gas and or oil extraction.

Het beste in de wereld klein maar fijn

The did self

If the Netherlands wants to save its land then the Dutch government should plant as many native trees in their country as possible. The trees take water from the land and hold the land firmly by their roots. There is no better natural way than mangroves to save the land lost in the sea, and the Netherlands will have to import sand from Arab countries. At least one thousand tons of sand should be imported to the Netherlands every year in large ships and coconut trees should be planted on the shores of the Netherlands. (Suggestion from Pakistan)

you know what always bothers me. When English nations speak out names of foreign countries such as maaslandkering/maaslandkade and are completely unable to pronounce it, yet are somehow presenting information while they dont even spend a second to use translate to learn how to say something. Any other culture in the world will try to listen and repeat the same name. Americans make projects on topics, do no homework for names, just technical information. But even though its about technical information being able to pronounce everything right is not so hard. And I would think more countries have this issue with americans globally. Butchering names yet here they are trying to explain things to people that they never worked with, and then when a project is made they cant even copy paste that information correctly. Its a shame, the topic is great, americans who refuse to do research isnt.