Environmental Policy in 19th-Century Leyden

Abstract

Men have always been changing and reconstructing their physical environment. How far that implied an improvement or worsening is an important question more easily brought forward than answered. The Dutch are supposed to have created their own country after God had created the world. The struggle with the water not only resulted in a physical, but also in a moral geography (Schama 1987). The countryside and the urban landscape, especially in the western parts of the country, was gained by dispelling the water, the sea and the rivers which originated in Switzerland and France and found their way to the sea through the Netherlands. Dealing with the physical environment is for that reason largely a question of dealing with water. In the process of industrialization and the speeding up of the urbanization, changes occurred in other sectors of this man-made environment. The industry itself influenced the environment by its buildings and by the industrial processes. Water pollution was joined by air and ground pollution.