h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi again,

Nice entry on dikes and polders! However, you've made some minor mistakes:
Harlem lake is written as Haarlemmermeer,
The dike, which closes the former Zuiderzee is called the 'afsluitdijk' (roughly translated: 'closingdike' and is approx. 30 kilometres long and was build in the 1930s (I think it was finnished in 1935 put I'm not completely sure about that.)
Some additional information about the fight against water:
In 1953 there was a big flood in the southwest of the netherlands (Zeeland) which killed thousends of people. After that the government decided to construct the 'Deltawerken' which consists of numeruos dams, closing most see arms in that part of holland. It was finnished somewhere in the eighties.

I hope this can be of some use, if you want to know more, please ask me.

Janus

If dykes are tall, then there is a lot of wall space. Is this put to use, say with solar cells to run the pumps, or with vining plants which help drink up and transpire water?

Most of the dikes have roads on the top, and cows or sheep on the sides. In the time most were build, there were no solar cells, and cattle are easier on the steep sides than crops.

During my visit to the Netherlands, I wanted to see de zee, so my girlfriend and I hopped a train from Groningen to Uithuisen (sp?). That was an hour walk to de zee. We walked through two other dykes, one that was completely open at the road, one that had a water gate that could be closed to keep the water out if necessary, and the main dyke itself. When we got to the dyke, there were sheep, a road and de zee, already being drained to reclaim more land. It was a nice day for it, and enjoyable, but not visually pleasing. Oh, well, I got to see de zee in Den Haag (Schafening?) on the beach a week later...what fun.