Eastern Scheldt

Abstract

Deltas are of great importance to humans all over the world. They are densely populated coastal areas, where land arises from sea. An amazing gradient where two worlds meet and nature and humans proliferate traditionally. Yet this gradient increasingly disappears due to the great technical advances since the 19th century, which tried to control the marine dynamics of deltas to ensure safety of the hinterland against inundation. The Deltaworks in the Netherlands embody this. The masterpiece of the Deltaworks meant the construction of a national icon: the Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier, which does not only withstand storm surges, but even daily controls the tides of the sea in the Eastern Scheldt. However, this permeable dam has resulted in the erosion of the intertidal area and subsequently in an insatiable demand of sand, which increases annually due to sea-level rise. The intertidal area will have disappeared in about 2080 as a consequence of this sand hunger, with major social - and ecological problems as a result. Besides sand hunger, Zeeland also suffers from space hunger. The rise of mass recreation in the past century has led to the cluttering of holiday parks in the hinterland of the delta, which destroy the lowlands and the delta in their vastness. Therefore, a holistic solution for the Zeeland delta does not only secure the intertidal area, but also encompasses the finding of a suitable place for recreation in its delta. This is achieved by means of the deconstruction of the Eastern Scheldt storm surge barrier and Grevelingendam, and using the resulting new marine dynamics to promote the social - and ecological situation of the Eastern Scheldt. The new multifunctional coastal defense systems protect the hinterland from inundation permanently and is in itself a new landscape entity of Zeeland in which the function of recreation becomes integrated into the landscape. This way Zeeland is strengthened integrally between sea and land and the Eastern Scheldt is transformed from a nature - to a human reserve, where all interactions live together as an obviousness.