Zuiderzee Works

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Zuiderzee works

The Zuiderzee Works (Dutch: Zuiderzeewerken) is a system of dams and dikes, land reclamation and water drainage work, which was the largest hydraulic engineering project undertaken by the Netherlands during the twentieth century. The project involved the damming of the Zuiderzee, a large, shallow inlet of the North Sea, and the reclamation of land in the newly enclosed water using polders. Its main purposes are to improve flood protection and create additional land for agriculture.

The enormous scale of the works required the creation of a joint venture company comprising several large dredging contractors, known as the Maatschappij tot Uitvoering van Zuiderzeewerken.[1][2] The American Society of Civil Engineers declared the works, together with the Delta Works in the South-West of the Netherlands, as among the Seven Wonders of the Modern World.[3]

Sentinel-2 photo of the IJsselmeer and surroundings.
The 32 km Afsluitdijk separates the IJsselmeer (right) from the Wadden Sea (left), protecting thousands of km2 of land.
  1. ^ Korteweg, J. (2018). Breaking New Ground: Dutch Dredging Pioneers. Balans. ISBN 978-94-6003-967-6. Retrieved 19 July 2024.
  2. ^ Sluyterman, K.; Bouwens, B. (2010). Verdiept Verleden: Een eeuw koninklijke Boskalis Westminster en de Nederlandse Baggerindustrie [Deepened Past: A Century of Royal Boskalis Westminster and the Dutch Dredging Industry] (in Dutch). Amsterdam: Boom. pp. 100–116. ISBN 978-90-8506-949-2.
  3. ^ http://www.ce.memphis.edu/1101/interesting_stuff/7wonders.html%7CSeven[permanent dead link] Wonders of the Modern World