Polder

A polder (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈpɔldər] ^ⓘ) is a low-lying tract of land that forms an artificial hydrological entity, enclosed by embankments known as dikes. The three types of polder are:

Land reclaimed from a body of water, such as a lake or the seabed
Flood plains separated from the sea or river by a dike
Marshes separated from the surrounding water by a dike and subsequently drained; these are also known as koogs, especially in Germany

The ground level in drained marshes subsides over time. All polders will eventually be below the surrounding water level some or all of the time. Water enters the low-lying polder through infiltration and water pressure of groundwater, or rainfall, or transport of water by rivers and canals. This usually means that the polder has an excess of water, which is pumped out or drained by opening sluices at low tide. Care must be taken not to set the internal water level too low. Polder land made up of peat (former marshland) will sink in relation to its previous level, because of peat decomposing when exposed to oxygen from the air.

Polders are at risk of flooding at all times, and care must be taken to protect the surrounding dikes. Dikes are typically built with locally available materials, and each material has its own risks: sand is prone to collapse owing to saturation by water; dry peat is lighter than water and potentially unable to retain water in very dry seasons. Some animals dig tunnels in the barrier, allowing water to infiltrate the structure; the muskrat is known for this activity and hunted in certain European countries because of it. Polders are most commonly, though not exclusively, found in river deltas, former fenlands, and coastal areas.

Flooding of polders has also been used as a military tactic in the past. One example is the flooding of the polders along the Yser River during World War I. Opening the sluices at high tide and closing them at low tide turned the polders into an inaccessible swamp, which allowed the Allied armies to stop the German army.

Netherlands has a large area of polders: as much as 20% of the land area has at some point in the past been reclaimed from the sea, thus contributing to the development of the country. IJsselmeer is the most famous polder project of the Netherlands. Some other countries which have polders are Bangladesh, Belgium, Canada and China. Some examples of Dutch polder projects are Beemster, Schermer, Flevopolder and Noordoostpolder.

Etymology

The Dutch word polder derives successively from Middle Dutch polre, from Old Dutch polra, and ultimately from pol-, a piece of land elevated above its surroundings, with the augmentative suffix -er and epenthetical -d-. The word has been adopted in thirty-six languages.^[1]

Netherlands

The Netherlands is frequently associated with polders, as its engineers became noted for developing techniques to drain wetlands and make them usable for agriculture and other development. This is illustrated by the saying "God created the world, but the Dutch created the Netherlands".^[2]

The Dutch have a long history of reclamation of marshes and fenland, resulting in some 3,000 polders^[3] nationwide. By 1961, about half of the country's land, 18,000 square kilometres (6,800 sq mi), was reclaimed from the sea.^[4]^{[better source needed]} About half the total surface area of polders in northwest Europe is in the Netherlands. The first embankments in Europe were constructed in Roman times. The first polders were constructed in the 11th century. The oldest extant polder is the Achtermeer polder, from 1533.

As a result of flooding disasters, water boards called waterschap (when situated more inland) or hoogheemraadschap (near the sea, mainly used in the Holland region)^[5]^[6] were set up to maintain the integrity of the water defences around polders, maintain the waterways inside a polder, and control the various water levels inside and outside the polder. Water boards hold separate elections, levy taxes, and function independently from other government bodies. Their function is basically unchanged even today. As such, they are the oldest democratic institutions in the country. The necessary cooperation among all ranks to maintain polder integrity gave its name to the Dutch version of third-way politics—the Polder Model.

The 1953 flood disaster prompted a new approach to the design of dikes and other water-retaining structures, based on an acceptable probability of overflowing. Risk is defined as the product of probability and consequences. The potential damage in lives, property, and rebuilding costs is compared with the potential cost of water defences. From these calculations follows an acceptable flood risk from the sea at one in 4,000–10,000 years, while it is one in 100–2,500 years for a river flood. The particular established policy guides the Dutch government to improve flood defences as new data on threat levels become available.

Major Dutch polders and the years they were laid dry include Beemster (1609–1612), Schermer (1633–1635), and Haarlemmermeerpolder (1852). Polders created as part of the Zuiderzee Works include Wieringermeerpolder (1930), Noordoostpolder (1942) and Flevopolder (1956–1968)

Examples of polders

Brazil

Several cities on the Paraíba Valley region (in the São Paulo (state)) have polders on land claimed from the floodplains around the Paraíba do Sul river.

Bangladesh

Bangladesh has 139 polders, of which 49 are sea-facing, while the rest are along the numerous distributaries of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna River delta. These were constructed in the 1960s to protect the coast from tidal flooding and reduce salinity incursion.^[7] They reduce long-term flooding and waterlogging following storm surges from tropical cyclones. They are also cultivated for agriculture.^[8]

Belgium

De Moeren, near Veurne in West Flanders
Polders along the Yser river between Nieuwpoort and Diksmuide
Polders of Muisbroek and Ettenhoven, in Ekeren and Hoevenen
Polder of Stabroek, in Stabroek
Kabeljauwpolder, in Zandvliet
Scheldepolders on the left bank of the Scheldt
Uitkerkse polders, near Blankenberge in West Flanders
Prosperpolder, near Doel, Antwerp and Kieldrecht.

Canada

China

The city of Kunshan has over 100 polders.^[9]

History

The Jiangnan region, at the Yangtze River Delta, has a long history of constructing polders. Most of these projects were performed between the 10th and 13th centuries.^[10] The Chinese government also assisted local communities in constructing dikes for swampland water drainage.^[11] The Lijia (里甲) self-monitoring system of 110 households under a lizhang (里长) headman was used for the purposes of service administration and tax collection in the polder, with a liangzhang (粮长, grain chief) responsible for maintaining the water system and a tangzhang (塘长, dike chief) for polder maintenance.^[12]

Denmark

Finland

Söderfjärden
Munsmo
Two polders (three square kilometres or 1.2 square miles in total) near Vassor in Korsholm

France

Marais Poitevin
Les Moëres, adjacent to the Flemish polder De Moeren in Belgium.
Polders de Couesnon near Mont-Saint Michel in Normandy^[13]

Germany

In Germany, land reclaimed by diking is called a koog. The German Deichgraf system was similar to the Dutch and is widely known from Theodor Storm's novella The Rider on the White Horse.

Altes Land near Hamburg
Blockland and Hollerland near Bremen
Nordstrand, Germany
Bormerkoog and Meggerkoog near Friedrichstadt
36 koogs in the district of Nordfriesland
12 koogs in the district of Dithmarschen

In southern Germany, the term polder is used for retention basins recreated by opening dikes during river floodplain restoration, a meaning somewhat opposite to that in coastal context.

Guyana

Black Bush Polder, Corentyne, Berbice.

India

Kuttanad Region, Kerala^[14]^[15]

Ireland

Lough Swilly, County Donegal. Near Inch Island and Newtowncunningham.^[16]

Italy

Delta of the river Po, such as Bonifica Valle del Mezzano

Japan

Around the Ariake Sea in Kyushu, mainly in Saga but also in Fukuoka and Kumamoto Prefectures

Slovenia

The Ankaran/Ancarano Polder (Slovene: Ankaranska bonifika), Semedela Polder (Semedelska bonifika), and Škocjan Polder (Škocjanska bonifika) in reclaimed land around Koper/Capodistria.

South Korea

Parts of the coast of Ganghwa Island, adjacent to the river Han in Incheon
Delta of the river Nakdong in Busan
Saemangeum in North Jeolla Province

Spain

Parts of Málaga were built on reclaimed land

United Kingdom

Traeth Mawr
Sunk Island, on the north shore of the Humber east of Hull
Caldicot and Wentloog Levels along the Severn Estuary in South Wales
Parts of The Fens
- Branston Island, by the River Witham outside the conventional area of the fens but connected to them.
Parts of the coast of Essex
Some land along the River Plym in Plymouth
Some land around Meathop east of Grange-over-Sands, reclaimed as a side-effect of building a railway embankment
The Somerset Levels and North Somerset Levels
Romney Marsh
Sealand, Flintshire
Humberhead Levels

United States

References

^ Sijs, N. van der, 2010. Nederlandse woorden wereldwijd, 747 pp. Sdu Uitgevers bv, Den Haag. ISBN 9789012582148, https://pure.knaw.nl/portal/files/458170/Nww_compleet_archief.pdf, page 155
^ Cf. Forrest Clingerman, Brian Treanor, Martin Drenthen, David Utsler, Interpreting Nature: The Emerging Field of Environmental Hermeneutics, Fordham University Press, 1 sep. 2013. The sentence stems from a poem by Archibald Pitcairn (1652–1713): Tellurem fecere dei, sua littora Belgae. C.D. van Strien, British Travellers in Holland During the Stuart Period: Edward Browne and John Locke as Tourists in the United Provinces, Leiden 1993, 164.
^ "Kijk naar de geschiedenis". Rijkswaterstaat. Retrieved 2008-01-21.^{[permanent dead link]}
^ Ley, Willy (October 1961). "The Home-Made Land". For Your Information. Galaxy Science Fiction. pp. 92–106.
^ "waterschap". Archived from the original on 2012-11-02.
^ Reh, W., Steenbergen, C., Aten, D. 2007. Sea of Land, The polder as an experimental atlas of Dutch landscape architecture. 344 pp, Uitgeverij Architectura & Natura. ISBN 9789071123962
^ "Bangladesh polders under threat", Irin News
^ "Bangladeshi project to enhance polders amidst climate woes" Archived 2014-04-08 at the Wayback Machine, Unearth News
^ "CRCWSC Trade Mission to Kunshan" (PDF). 2016-12-01. Archived (PDF) from the original on 2017-04-09.
^ Liao, Qiyu 繆启愉 (1985). Taihu Tangpu Weitian Shi Yanjiu 太湖塘浦圩田史研究 [The research of the dikes and polders of Lake Tai]. Beijing: Nongye Chubanshe.
^ Xie, Shi 谢湜 (2010). ""11 Shiji Taihu Diqu Nongtian Shuili Geju de Xingcheng" 11 世纪太湖地区农田水利格局的形成 [The formation of water management system in the farmland of the Lake Tai region in the eleventh century]". Journal of Sun Yat-sen University. 50 (5): 94–106.
^ Hamashima, Atsutoshi 滨岛敦俊 (1982). Mindai Kōnan nōson shakai no kenkyū 明代江南農村社会の研究 [Rural Society in Jiangnan during the Ming Dynasty. Tokyo: Tokyo University Press. pp. 9–65.
^ "les polders" (PDF). littoral-normand.n2000.fr. Retrieved 2023-03-25.
^ "Rain continues to throw a challenge in Kuttanad". The Hindu. The Hindu Group. 2011. Retrieved 2011-06-10.
^ Thampatti, Manorama (March 1999). "Rice Bowl in Turmoil: The Kuttanad Wetland Ecosystem". Resonance. Indian Academy of Sciences. Archived from the original on 2010-12-16. Retrieved 2011-06-10.
^ "Inch Wildfowl Reserve History". Inch and Foyle Wildfowl Project. Archived from the original on 7 September 2015. Retrieved 5 June 2015.
^ https://www.canonvannederland.nl/nl/overijssel/salland/zwartewaterland/-mastenbroekerpolder
^ https://www.staatsbosbeheer.nl/uit-in-de-natuur/locaties/polder-mastenbroek