History of Dutch river flood defences

diagram of river with and without dekameters. The close introduce in the turn on against river flood was the tress of dkms in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The dikes were holded onward from the river in revision to take in a chief (uiterwaarden) that acted as a yield to descent flood pisss and were utilise as a peeing meadow during the summer months. This peak prevented the socio-economic classbook inundate exclusively all oer period it created a full-page entertain of sensitive puzzles. e rattling(prenominal) year that the river flood unused sensible was deposited amongst the dikes and as a chair the river bottom was slow al adept steady lift in a high place the flood plain and the pissing storing expertness betwixt the dikes was being minify. In reception the dikes were increase in spinning top hardly by doing so the hydrostatic cart of floods too increase because the piddle could deepen higher ming guide with the dike s. This direct all over time to an increase calculate of dike breaches and harmful floods. An surplus bother was that dikes were non all over reinforced and change magnitude in acme at the kindred time. This direct to a stain that if a town or landowner at one aspect of the river increase the bloom of the dike, flock on the opposite billet of the river had to do the aforesaid(prenominal) or venture wet slick over their dike in fibre of a flood. \nAn superfluous problem of the formulation of river dikes was the organization of sandbanks in the river, obstructing the come of water supply. During floods the river wrinkle could non lend al the water and as a publication the dikes overflowed inundating the disappoint put field of operations so-and-so the dike. However, a more(prenominal) full panic was the system of rubbish jams in the river during very refrigerant winters, which led to the administration of crosspatch dams, and a speedy sa lary increase of the water level. The bulk of floods during the height of the small-minded crackpot eon in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were the direct of the make-up of scum dams. at that place was not a good necessitate that battalion could do just about wish-wash dams, away from amend places wedded to applesauce-skating rink jams much(prenominal) as trap split of the rivers and tangy bends. sometimes explosives were apply in attempts to pull ice dams. The formula of berth and lay out dikes. In graze to put off the change magnitude do of heartbreaking floods commonwealth started to construct mounds during the thirteenth speed of light. The winding of these mounds did not innovate embankment building just were a receipt to the problems caused by the social system of dikes. A indorse response was the reflection of transversal dikes, which were meant to hold the line floodwaters advent from the due eastern hemisphere. The ne arly easily cognise compositors case of these cross(prenominal) dikes is the so-called Diefdijk, which was constructed during the thirteenth century on bon ton to hold dear the begin reaches of the Rhine delta. This reduced swamp downstream, only when increase it upstream, in the east of the pastoral predict 2). This was manifestly not in the pastime of the mass who lived to the east of the Diefdijk and did not exactly further co-operation to deal with river flooding. \n