Floods and Flood Protection

The history of ‘floods and flood protection’ in the Delta is a story of great misery and at the same time great prosperity, the story of the self-created ‘enemy’, storm floods from the west and river floods from the east, that had to be ‘fought’ with ever-improved technological means: ever-higher and ever-stronger sea walls and river dykes. But the problem of flooding aggravated, accordingly as the sea level rose, and concurrently the embanked land subsided by forced draining. Straightforward technological solutions have always been the preferred strategy to cope with flooding problems. Already in the 16th century, however, there were farseeing persons like Andries Vierlingh, a dykemaster, and much concerned with the building and maintenance of sea dykes in the SW Delta. In 1570 he wrote a book on the construction of dykes, dams and sluices. According to him the only way to conquer the tidal forces was not with blunt technology, but with delicate, simple and intelligent designs. ‘Water will not be compelled by force’, he wrote, ‘or it will return that force unto you’ (Van Veen, 1950).

In this chapter the history of floods that stroke the Delta will be reviewed. I try to answer a number of questions in this context: How reliable are the historic data? What is told about floods in the course of history? What is the relation between storm surges, river floods and climate change? What is the relation between ice forming and river floods? There have been literally hundreds of storm floods and river floods in the course of history. The causes and effects of a few notorious floods will be discussed, in order to distract some lessons for future scenarios of flood defence.