Keeping up with the Dutch

Architect David Waggonner has been instrumental in connecting New Orleans to cutting-edge water-management practices in the Netherlands. He has sponsored multidisciplinary exchanges such as the Dutch Dialogues, and he's formed links to delta cities like Rotterdam. With large areas of the country below sea level, the Netherlands has been contending with the threat of surging seas and flooding for centuries. After a cataclysmic 1953 storm that breached dikes and flooded large areas of the country, the Dutch instituted a major program of reinforcing dikes and building huge surge barriers at the mouths of rivers.

In her book Sweet and Salt: Water and the Dutch, coauthor Tracy Metz describes the new Dutch concept of working with water in what she calls an amphibious culture. Metz, an Amsterdam resident, relates that the latest approach is in some ways a renewal of traditional methods used before the dikes. “The new Dutch approach is that you don't rely solely on mega-infrastructure,” Metz says. “We're seeing a more finely tuned, localized approach where sometimes it's better to take some of the pressure off the barriers and let the water in—in a controlled way.”

The Dutch are developing schemes for floating cities that would act as extensions to coastal areas. Illustration by Deltasync

The city of Rotterdam partnered with the firm DeltaSync to design and build a prototype floating exhibition hall. Photo by Deltasync

The Uros people of Lake Titicaca, Peru, have been building floating villages made of reeds for centuries. Photo by Edyta Pawlowska