We are increasingly aware of the impending sea level rise. But our country, literally the soil, is sinking faster in many areas than the sea level is rising, sometimes by more than one cm per year. As a small country, we can do little about sea level rise, but soil subsidence is a process that we could stop almost immediately.
Until about 800 years ago, the peat areas in the low-lying coastal plain of the Netherlands were one to two meters above sea level. Due to the systematic drainage and mining of the peat for agricultural purposes, peat and salt extraction, the Dutch peat landscape has drastically declined. This made the Netherlands very vulnerable to flooding, which has led to our coastal area being completely diked over the centuries.
To enable agriculture in the peat meadow area, the water level is still kept artificially low today. Through centuries of experience in keeping a steeply declining, flood-ravaged low-lying country livable, the Dutch have become the experts in the field of water management. However, this comes with a huge price tag, which will only increase as the soil subsides and the sea level rises.
In other countries, such as Bangladesh, subsidence is a relatively new concept. They do not yet have the money and the expertise to deal with this adequately. They experience flooding every year. Something that would also happen to us if we did not continuously engage in costly water management.
Kay Koster, subsidence expert at TNO, 02022.
