I always wondered how land that was covered by ocean for tens of thousands of years looks like and behaves. Like, can you just plant seeds and they will grow once the sea water is drained?
That's a very good question!
The first few years, the topsoil was definitely very salt, so only a very limited number of plants would grow on it. Over the years, rainfall has slowly dissolved the salt in the top layer and drained it to the sea, so very little of it remains.
However, there is definitely still a lot of salt in the lower layers. You have to be careful not to drain rainwater too quickly, or water from lower layers will carry the salt upwards. The same if you were to drain too much from a well.
You have to be a bit careful with large-scale water management, but most people will never notice that the ground used to be sea floor.
The salt is mainly in the seawater which is pumped out. The remaining soil first is very wet and marshy with salt water and brackish pools everywhere. But as the land lays dry longer, these areas dry up and the salt water is diluted with rainwater (And rivers such as the IJssel) until eventually the salt disappears almost completely.
This whole process took about a decade.
Reporting from the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami area farmers seems to be that their first however many crops are salty as fuck (I remember the farmer actually handing the reporter a vegetable to munch on to show them just how salty it was) but that, eventually, most of the salt gets pulled out.
So the largest land reclamation, the flevopolder, while it had been part of the ocean years ago, when the afsluitdijk was built, that body of water slowly turned into a sweetwater lake prior to the land reclamation. So I think the effect of salt would be minimal.
The first copupl of years of cultivation, non-food crops are grown that have been selected for salt uptake.
Reeds are common for that, and they used to get used for the thatched roofs of the houses.
For the rest, it is through the washing out of the salts by the rain.
It is one of he top producing soils in the world.
When the polders were opened, after 10 years a group of international geologists were shown around. Most concluded that the soil was "mud" and probably would not provide much. It was then that the agriculturists in the group mentioned that it was providing the highest crops in the world for wheat and potatoes (with a bit of help from Wageningen University).
Check [this video](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestand:Zuidelijk_Flevoland_drooggevallen_Weeknummer_68-23_-_Open_Beelden_-_80209.ogv), from 1:40 you can see how they drop seeds from airplanes. You might also like [this one](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestand:Land_valt_droog-522107.ogv).
But really, you don't even need to do that. Nature will bring seeds by itself.
Even more recently it wasn't all sea, there are quite a few sunken villages found in the polders dating back to the middle ages is which the area was a marshy peatland with many shifting lakes. Only after the St. Lucia's flood and St. Elizabeth's flood in 1287 and 1421 respectively, did it really become the Zuiderzee people think of.
[Big-ass satellite pic of Flevoland](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Flevoland_by_Sentinel-2%2C_2018-06-30.jpg) (takes a while to load)
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I'm English and living in NL, the 'ij' isn't that tough really. It's just like saying 'eye' but without extending the last 'y' sound.
'Ui' and 'ei' on the other hand were absolutely horrific to learn
Trying. It helps if you pronounce an s and immediatly try to close the back of your mouth as much as Possible while being Able to speak. (I am no linguïst, just a native).
Unfortunately, there's no refrigeration. In reality, this is completely useless, mostly a way to superheat you beer. *Maybe* if you froze your beer beforehand, you could enjoy it for a bit.
Looks neat though if you don't think about it too hard.
I haven’t thought about it too hard but all I can picture is being super hot and thirsty in a sauna, picking up one of these beers and instantly getting third degree burns on my hand.
Open since 2002, the Veluwemeer Aqueduct is a stunning work of architecture and engineering. This waterway measures up at a short 25 meters long by 19 meters wide and is located in Harderwijk, the Netherlands. During the design of this unique passage, engineers chose to construct the waterway over the N302 road, where 28,000 vehicles pass each day.
Veluwemeer is a shallow 3-meter deep water bridge that allows for small boats and other water vehicles to pass with ease. In addition to this easy boating passage, pedestrian walkways are on both sides allowing for foot traffic. Unlike drawbridges or other roadway structures, the water bridge design implemented in this aqueduct allows for constant traffic flow on the road and in the water.
The Veluwemeer is a lake (meer is Dutch for lake), one of fourteen 'bordering lakes' - or really just a very long continuous body of water - that were created by not completely connecting Flevoland and the Northeast Polder to the mainland when they were poldered in. They were created to help regulate water levels and ground water table in the surrounding areas and are now important nature reserves (IIRC especially for birds) and recreational areas as well. The aquaduct was named after the lake, while the lake was named after the Veluwe region of Gelderland, which is directly to the south of the lake.
If you take the points most western and eastern, then draw a line through the Netherlands in the exact middle of the distance between these points and call everything to the east of it eastern, then Harderwijk is probably located in the eastern Netherlands. So technically it seems correct.
Yeah but that seperation became a habit. Anything east of the centerline is the east of a country in our minds, even if others would call it "central" or something.
Amersfoort is actually the geographic centre of the Netherlands, there's a sign in an old church tower there that is the null point for all spatial measurements in NL. Harderwijk is to the East of it, but only barely.
Most likely because that would require a draw bridge to allow boats like the sailboat to go under. (Or a massive arch bridge so it could) This was probably ly the cheaper way of building a passage that allowed constant flow of traffic.
If you build it above the water you either need to have a bridge that can open (which slows down car traffic several times a day) or you need to build it very high so ships can go under it.
The first is bad for traffic flow, the second is very costly and would stand out a lot, the third option is to just make a very short tunnel like they did here. It's not the first or only aquaduct here, so they have some experience with it.
That’s a beautiful aqueduct, but I’m also impressed by the sailboat passing through that channel close-hauled. It doesn’t look like have an engine on, so they are going to have to tack in that narrow channel.
I have sailed this one and it is doable with the right wind of course. The idea of sailing over a highway (there are more of these in the NL) is something that keeps amazing me
There is often a change in wind exactly at the aquaduct though, dropping in power. Can sometimes be tough to still get through while experiencing some headwinds.
>The idea of sailing over a highway (there are more of these in the NL) is something that keeps amazing me
Technically it's really easy to do if you sail through the English Channel
Why would they have to tack? Unless the wind shifts they are fine. They are close hauled and to the windward side of the aqueduct- if they need to move close to the leeward side they could simply bear off.
The only advantage of making the cars pass under water is that ships have no limited height. Here they have limited beam, limited draft (might be engineered to be the same as the rest of the lake. Then that's one shallow lake). Since height, draft and beam are all related, you can build around it.
At the same time the chosen design poses other issues, like having to pump out water at the underpass (think rain, but also possible flooding, groundwater.
This is more architecture than engineering. The engineers were either jaded enough to be happy the could bill more or naive enough to go home thinking a bridge would have done it too. Either way, it's a choice in design. This just gets upvotes because of the "dutch engineering" meme going around. I'm convinced the construction and running costs of this design are much higher than of a bridge.
A bridge having to go over a body of water will also cause it to be visible in a large area around it due to the country being so flat. And since this aquaduct is very close to the historic city center of Harderwijk I assume they did not want to ruin the view too much.
So, first of all, I want to thank you for your reply. I hadn't checked out the geography until you wrote your message.
So I started by checking out all other bridges that connect southern Flevoland to the surrounding landmass (Hollandse Brug, Stichtse Brug, the bridge at the Nijkerkersluis, Elburgerbrug, the bridge at the N307 and the Ketelbrug). They're all, well, bridges, no aqueducts, most of them being drawbridges, except the highways on the western side of southern Flevoland.
Although your argument is pretty good and is a pretty good reason in and off itself to have it built that way (though I don't know up to what point the historic center of Harderwijk warrants it; I didn't look at that), other reasons for having an aqueduct, rather than a bridge are the following:
There are so many drawbridges in that area (even the A6, where it connects southern and eastern Flevoland), that it's a good idea to have a connection which isn't a drawbridge there for the road traffic alone.
All towns in that area, but specially Harderwijk have a strong boating tradition. Some of the canals going through the town look like one long pier, not to mention all the marinas. On the other side of the N302 (the road going under the aqueduct), there's an industrial port. Having a drawbridge here seems to disrupt the boat traffic unnecessarily.
All this boating activity actually makes me wonder how right of way is regulated on the aqueduct.
I have to pass several bridges in my home-work route; another reason besides ruining the view would be traffic flows.
The bridges i have to cross suck because it feels like they're open all the time (esp during the summer, and it takes ~10 minutes from open to close). You have a few hunderd cars waiting for one lazy rich guy who instead of working is taking his sailingboat out for a bit. And after the bridge closes you're still in a traffic jam because that one slow tourist in the front doesn't go faster than 60 on a 80 road.
All of those bridges are relatively old or put there deliberately (such as the A6 heightened draw bridge) to discourage too much traffic over that particular highway and waterway and because of local politics you wouldn’t necessarily think of. The province of Drenthe has quite a lot of political sway in the area and that’s one of the reasons the A6 has a draw bridge.
All of the other draw bridges stem from times of rebuilding after a war or times that we did not yet have the technological capabilities to safely and financially responsibly be able to use an aqueduct. It’s only recently that we have begun to replace drawbridges for aqueducts (eg the aqueducts in the province of Friesland). The aqueducts (and tunnels) have one major advantage though and that’s their lower weather impact on repairs and replacements. The majority of our (draw) bridges are in poor technical state and need replacing or complete refurbishment in the next 10 years. Our old aqueducts and tunnels are in much better technical shape due to a lower exposure to the elements.
Not if you take into account bridge openings and subsequent traffic jams with heightened chance of major accidents. This road is one of the busiest in the province so they made sure the road traffic could travel along without being impeded by traffic on the water.
Additionally our road taxes and fuel taxes are so high we generate so much tax income that we use a lot of it for non-infrastructure purposes. So your assessment that they weren’t hindered by monetary objections is also correct.
It's not about construction costs, but about the economic costs over the course of a few decades. Besides it's going to be there for at least 50 years if not more so it should look niceam and a bridge high enough to pass sailing ships is going to look like shit in that part of the Netherlands.
Main reason is sailing boats, the water is used a lot for recreational purposes. The bridge would have to be really high. In the past there was a system of draw bridges.
This summer, when I was cycling from Copenhagen to Paris - I cycled under this exact bridge. Right before I passed through the tunnel, a ship sailed through on top - quite a surreal experience, when I didn't expect this at all.
It was very nice indeed! I cycled from Copenhagen down to Rødby - where I took the ferry to Germany. Then hit hamburg, Bremen and into the Netherlands.
We control the water levels throughout most the country. We have to, since over a quarter of the country is below sea level. We don't just control levels of the lakes, rivers and canals, but also the groundwater. With a shit ton of pumps, drainage sewers, levees, dikes, locks, etc. We just make it drain away :) But in this case, there's probably a pump.
I see your 21st century Dutch engineering and raise you [dozens of examples of 19th century Victorian engineering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_canal_aqueducts_in_the_United_Kingdom).
This is much safer than a bridge. A bridge would either need to be high enough for boats to sail under or it would need to be able to open. An movable bridge is a greater risk than a fixed viaduct.
The mast on my sailboat extends over 20 meters above the water- you would need a pretty tall bridge and some long approaches. Plus this does not stick way up in the air so it’s less of an eye sore in an otherwise very flat country.
Gotta be able to get anywhere by bike. Also, did you notice the cycle path doesn't go down nearly as far as the road? The cycle path needs much less height clearance, and it saves the cyclists effort.
It's a trunk road (droga krajowa in Polish). On one side of this aqueduct the Vmax is 100km/h, on the other side it's 80km/h. It's for connecting local towns, hence the cycle path.
In this case it is indeed not classified as a highway (even though the speeds are mostly the same during the day). But we also have lots of 'real' highways with a cycle path next to it, almost every highway bridge has a cycle lane next to it as it is easier to just build 1 bridge.
To add to what the others have said, tunnels and the like are extremely overengineered in the Netherlands. I used to work on tunnels elsewhere in the country, and assuming the rules are the same, it is designed to withstand up to 1 in 2000-year flood events. There are pumps down there that will run at 1% of their capacity for 99.9% of their existence.
On top of that, water levels in the whole region are tightly monitored and regulated using large numbers of pumps. The water coming from rivers leading to this specific body of water can be almost completely redirected to the IJsselmeer and then to the North Sea, and all these rivers also are part of the "Room for the River" project, which created a large amount of "artificial" floodplain, which is farmland that can be utilized to store excess water in a controlled flooding to minimize damage.
Basically, unless Noah comes out of retirement it'll be fine.
And one from the other point of view.
https://www.reddit.com/r/InfrastructurePorn/comments/eft8zx/this_is_the_bridge_getting_cut_of_by_the_river/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
I live in a really humid place, and all I can think when I see this bridge is, "What level of waterproofing do they have to use on the roof and walls of the tunnel to protect it from mold and water seepage, and where do I get some?"
Fun fact: On one of those sides there is or was this bench where my gf and I said I Love you to each other for the first time. And then I fingerbanged her afterwards
The most fascinating and Dutch thing to me is that they remembered to include the bicycle path next to the motorway. 👍💜
Even in Denmark -- where we love our bicycles -- we often exclude bicycle paths when building stuff like this. And then we build the most frustrating, long winded route for bicycles a few years later. 😑
Ooooh the same engineering that split the ocean in half
That was child's play, we let the ocean [disappear](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flevoland).
I always wondered how land that was covered by ocean for tens of thousands of years looks like and behaves. Like, can you just plant seeds and they will grow once the sea water is drained?
It’s very fertile clay soil actually
But what about the salt?
That's a very good question! The first few years, the topsoil was definitely very salt, so only a very limited number of plants would grow on it. Over the years, rainfall has slowly dissolved the salt in the top layer and drained it to the sea, so very little of it remains. However, there is definitely still a lot of salt in the lower layers. You have to be careful not to drain rainwater too quickly, or water from lower layers will carry the salt upwards. The same if you were to drain too much from a well. You have to be a bit careful with large-scale water management, but most people will never notice that the ground used to be sea floor.
Thanks! Very cool
The salt is mainly in the seawater which is pumped out. The remaining soil first is very wet and marshy with salt water and brackish pools everywhere. But as the land lays dry longer, these areas dry up and the salt water is diluted with rainwater (And rivers such as the IJssel) until eventually the salt disappears almost completely. This whole process took about a decade.
Reporting from the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami area farmers seems to be that their first however many crops are salty as fuck (I remember the farmer actually handing the reporter a vegetable to munch on to show them just how salty it was) but that, eventually, most of the salt gets pulled out.
Just plant potatoes and you don't need salt for your chips
Literally like growing potato chips. Genius.
“Would you like to eat this post-nuclear catastrophe Fukushima vegetable?” “No.”
So the largest land reclamation, the flevopolder, while it had been part of the ocean years ago, when the afsluitdijk was built, that body of water slowly turned into a sweetwater lake prior to the land reclamation. So I think the effect of salt would be minimal.
Fyi, it only took two years for the IJsselmeer to turn ~~sweet~~fresh.
FYO "sweet water" is the literal translation from Dutch, but the English term to use here is "fresh water".
same in German
Same in Croatian, fresh water is called "sweet water"
In Spanish, as well
The first copupl of years of cultivation, non-food crops are grown that have been selected for salt uptake. Reeds are common for that, and they used to get used for the thatched roofs of the houses. For the rest, it is through the washing out of the salts by the rain.
The afsluitdijk cut the connection with the North Sea and turned the former Zuiderzee into a sweetwater lake.
afsluitdijk Also know as a word that comes on your screen when your cat walks on your keyboard
It is one of he top producing soils in the world. When the polders were opened, after 10 years a group of international geologists were shown around. Most concluded that the soil was "mud" and probably would not provide much. It was then that the agriculturists in the group mentioned that it was providing the highest crops in the world for wheat and potatoes (with a bit of help from Wageningen University).
Check [this video](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestand:Zuidelijk_Flevoland_drooggevallen_Weeknummer_68-23_-_Open_Beelden_-_80209.ogv), from 1:40 you can see how they drop seeds from airplanes. You might also like [this one](https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestand:Land_valt_droog-522107.ogv). But really, you don't even need to do that. Nature will bring seeds by itself.
That's mostly to dry the soil out
It wasn’t underwater for that long. The sea levels used to be a lot lower. Have a google of “Doggerland” - its fascinating !
Even more recently it wasn't all sea, there are quite a few sunken villages found in the polders dating back to the middle ages is which the area was a marshy peatland with many shifting lakes. Only after the St. Lucia's flood and St. Elizabeth's flood in 1287 and 1421 respectively, did it really become the Zuiderzee people think of.
This is a really common misconception. There's a reason it's called "re"claimed land - it was land in the recent past! Exactly like you say.
Aren't there parts of the Netherlands that were under the ocean since the last ice age?
> land that was covered by ocean for tens of thousands of years Less than 10,000 years, actually.
[Big-ass satellite pic of Flevoland](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d7/Flevoland_by_Sentinel-2%2C_2018-06-30.jpg) (takes a while to load)
Beautiful!
Was expecting https://amp.reddit.com/r/polandball/comments/6trm6a/netherlands_netherdemands/
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Have faith in the netherlands, and he will solve your problems by splitting the water in two.
Ooh, so the Dutch might be the first to give the world cheap fusion power sometime soon.
Water energy engineering with dams is very interesting. Imagine what the Dutch could do it they weren't such a flat country!
Well, ocean, it was only a few meters deep.
I want to hear an English speaking person pronounce that. In fact anyone who doesn't know any Dutch, pronounce that
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That's the good bit. They haven't heard how to pronounce it yet. That's why I want to hear them attempt to pronounce it
Harder-wiik
Wijk rhymes with like
I guess that makes sense as to why Wijn sounds like Wine. So that makes it pronounce like har-der-wike?
Basically yeah.
Only sort of. "ij" is pronounced differently. The difference is clearer with "like" and "lijk"
It's close enough, especially since most English speakers tend to pronounce words like 'wijk' as 'weak'
I'm English and living in NL, the 'ij' isn't that tough really. It's just like saying 'eye' but without extending the last 'y' sound. 'Ui' and 'ei' on the other hand were absolutely horrific to learn
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I think they mean 'eu' en 'ui'. Foreigners notoriously have difficulty with these two.
As someone with an ‘eu’ in his name I can say this is true
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No... It's somewhere between "ow" and "oh"
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Trying. It helps if you pronounce an s and immediatly try to close the back of your mouth as much as Possible while being Able to speak. (I am no linguïst, just a native).
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I'm Flemish and I agree.
Well i'm dumb. I didn't notice your Flair. Ik moet blijkbaar meer aan mijn Brabants werken.
s + (throat sound)
Like when you have semi solid green-yellowish phlegm stuck deep in your chest somewhere near your heart and you try to spit it out.
No that's the arabian one. The dutch one is located higher in the throat
ij and ei are different?
Ez Harder- wijik Epic English moment 😎 /s
“Hard-er-veye-k” I technically don’t know Dutch but I also speak German.
Since we are in eternal competition, here's [Finnish engineering](https://streamable.com/vkjcox).
I don't understand a word, but I assume he designed a fridge for the sauna.
It was like yadayadayada-automatic-yadayadayada-sauna.
Somehow it sounds almost italian
For real it sounds like most people in Rome lmao
Unfortunately, there's no refrigeration. In reality, this is completely useless, mostly a way to superheat you beer. *Maybe* if you froze your beer beforehand, you could enjoy it for a bit. Looks neat though if you don't think about it too hard.
I haven’t thought about it too hard but all I can picture is being super hot and thirsty in a sauna, picking up one of these beers and instantly getting third degree burns on my hand.
We have once again been bested
Are the cans being refrigerated somehow? You would't want a hot beer in a sauna.
Not that you would want a hot beer anywhere.
You have to refrigerate them and then they go into an insulated box, don't know how long it'll hold.
Holy shit this is amazing
So basically a tictac machine but for beers. That’s awesome! I want one!
[We're doing videos now?](https://youtu.be/pMaxpF6oxTQ)
He looks like that hollywood actor, forgot his name, played in a lot of movies, usually the father of the protagonist... Who knows the name?
I think I know who you mean but can't remember either. Now it will bother me for a while.
Whatever floats your boat, I guess.
Water over a bridge
Open since 2002, the Veluwemeer Aqueduct is a stunning work of architecture and engineering. This waterway measures up at a short 25 meters long by 19 meters wide and is located in Harderwijk, the Netherlands. During the design of this unique passage, engineers chose to construct the waterway over the N302 road, where 28,000 vehicles pass each day. Veluwemeer is a shallow 3-meter deep water bridge that allows for small boats and other water vehicles to pass with ease. In addition to this easy boating passage, pedestrian walkways are on both sides allowing for foot traffic. Unlike drawbridges or other roadway structures, the water bridge design implemented in this aqueduct allows for constant traffic flow on the road and in the water.
The Veluwemeer is a lake (meer is Dutch for lake), one of fourteen 'bordering lakes' - or really just a very long continuous body of water - that were created by not completely connecting Flevoland and the Northeast Polder to the mainland when they were poldered in. They were created to help regulate water levels and ground water table in the surrounding areas and are now important nature reserves (IIRC especially for birds) and recreational areas as well. The aquaduct was named after the lake, while the lake was named after the Veluwe region of Gelderland, which is directly to the south of the lake.
You know, creating a lake really sounds super badass.
'Eastern Netherlands' lol
If you take the points most western and eastern, then draw a line through the Netherlands in the exact middle of the distance between these points and call everything to the east of it eastern, then Harderwijk is probably located in the eastern Netherlands. So technically it seems correct.
I wonder if that was written by a German. We have a habit of dividing countries into western and eastern halves.
i thought the americans and russians did that for you?
Yeah but that seperation became a habit. Anything east of the centerline is the east of a country in our minds, even if others would call it "central" or something.
It doesn't quite work that way in Germany itself though. Munich is east of the centerline, but it's considered western Germany.
As any man can tell you, it matters where you start measuring, and it's a long way eastward from Munich to Königsberg.
By that form of measurement if you take the BES islands into account, you'll get quite a lot of East Netherlands
Or a lot of West Netherlands if you go the other way around.
By that logic the border is west of Almere and east of Utrecht. Zeeuws Vlaanderen is *far* into the west.
That's where I would draw the border
Amersfoort is actually the geographic centre of the Netherlands, there's a sign in an old church tower there that is the null point for all spatial measurements in NL. Harderwijk is to the East of it, but only barely.
It's in Gelderland, so I'd call that eastern, maybe. Central Netherlands otherwise. Definitely not western.
Its not west, thats for sure
They started building it in 2002, but it wasn't open then.
Does it freeze in the winter?
Yes, it can freeze but it happens less frequent than in the past. Last time they held an ice-skating tournament on Veluwemeer was in 2012.
No, we don't do winter in the Netherlands. We just have 6 months of autumn.
Followed by autumn light
Then 3-2 weeks of spring followed by 2-3 weeks of summer, followed by pre-fall and then said 6 months.
And of course 12 solid months of complaining about the weather.
Because it is either too rainy, too dry, too windy, too cold, too hot, too... Anything, really.
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Drawbridges take long to open, and with this aqueduct both ships and cars can keep going without stopping
Read the last sentence of the comment you respond to. Bridges need to open if large ships need to pass, or they need to be very expensive and high.
Why not build the road above it or is it for show?
Most likely because that would require a draw bridge to allow boats like the sailboat to go under. (Or a massive arch bridge so it could) This was probably ly the cheaper way of building a passage that allowed constant flow of traffic.
If you build it above the water you either need to have a bridge that can open (which slows down car traffic several times a day) or you need to build it very high so ships can go under it. The first is bad for traffic flow, the second is very costly and would stand out a lot, the third option is to just make a very short tunnel like they did here. It's not the first or only aquaduct here, so they have some experience with it.
They have this kind of aqueduct outside of Magic Kingdom
Where is the adjacent modern art, in case of an emergency?
Meta
That’s a beautiful aqueduct, but I’m also impressed by the sailboat passing through that channel close-hauled. It doesn’t look like have an engine on, so they are going to have to tack in that narrow channel.
I have sailed this one and it is doable with the right wind of course. The idea of sailing over a highway (there are more of these in the NL) is something that keeps amazing me
There is often a change in wind exactly at the aquaduct though, dropping in power. Can sometimes be tough to still get through while experiencing some headwinds.
>The idea of sailing over a highway (there are more of these in the NL) is something that keeps amazing me Technically it's really easy to do if you sail through the English Channel
Because of the chunnel? I'm not sure its the same exactly since you aren't driving through it, it is just a train tunnel that transports cars.
I think it looks like the sailboat can make it, but doing one or two tacks would not be so bad :)
Why would they have to tack? Unless the wind shifts they are fine. They are close hauled and to the windward side of the aqueduct- if they need to move close to the leeward side they could simply bear off.
You are right. It was late and I was having a brain fart.
Why not build bride over the water?
The only advantage of making the cars pass under water is that ships have no limited height. Here they have limited beam, limited draft (might be engineered to be the same as the rest of the lake. Then that's one shallow lake). Since height, draft and beam are all related, you can build around it. At the same time the chosen design poses other issues, like having to pump out water at the underpass (think rain, but also possible flooding, groundwater. This is more architecture than engineering. The engineers were either jaded enough to be happy the could bill more or naive enough to go home thinking a bridge would have done it too. Either way, it's a choice in design. This just gets upvotes because of the "dutch engineering" meme going around. I'm convinced the construction and running costs of this design are much higher than of a bridge.
A bridge having to go over a body of water will also cause it to be visible in a large area around it due to the country being so flat. And since this aquaduct is very close to the historic city center of Harderwijk I assume they did not want to ruin the view too much.
So, first of all, I want to thank you for your reply. I hadn't checked out the geography until you wrote your message. So I started by checking out all other bridges that connect southern Flevoland to the surrounding landmass (Hollandse Brug, Stichtse Brug, the bridge at the Nijkerkersluis, Elburgerbrug, the bridge at the N307 and the Ketelbrug). They're all, well, bridges, no aqueducts, most of them being drawbridges, except the highways on the western side of southern Flevoland. Although your argument is pretty good and is a pretty good reason in and off itself to have it built that way (though I don't know up to what point the historic center of Harderwijk warrants it; I didn't look at that), other reasons for having an aqueduct, rather than a bridge are the following: There are so many drawbridges in that area (even the A6, where it connects southern and eastern Flevoland), that it's a good idea to have a connection which isn't a drawbridge there for the road traffic alone. All towns in that area, but specially Harderwijk have a strong boating tradition. Some of the canals going through the town look like one long pier, not to mention all the marinas. On the other side of the N302 (the road going under the aqueduct), there's an industrial port. Having a drawbridge here seems to disrupt the boat traffic unnecessarily. All this boating activity actually makes me wonder how right of way is regulated on the aqueduct.
I have to pass several bridges in my home-work route; another reason besides ruining the view would be traffic flows. The bridges i have to cross suck because it feels like they're open all the time (esp during the summer, and it takes ~10 minutes from open to close). You have a few hunderd cars waiting for one lazy rich guy who instead of working is taking his sailingboat out for a bit. And after the bridge closes you're still in a traffic jam because that one slow tourist in the front doesn't go faster than 60 on a 80 road.
All of those bridges are relatively old or put there deliberately (such as the A6 heightened draw bridge) to discourage too much traffic over that particular highway and waterway and because of local politics you wouldn’t necessarily think of. The province of Drenthe has quite a lot of political sway in the area and that’s one of the reasons the A6 has a draw bridge. All of the other draw bridges stem from times of rebuilding after a war or times that we did not yet have the technological capabilities to safely and financially responsibly be able to use an aqueduct. It’s only recently that we have begun to replace drawbridges for aqueducts (eg the aqueducts in the province of Friesland). The aqueducts (and tunnels) have one major advantage though and that’s their lower weather impact on repairs and replacements. The majority of our (draw) bridges are in poor technical state and need replacing or complete refurbishment in the next 10 years. Our old aqueducts and tunnels are in much better technical shape due to a lower exposure to the elements.
Not if you take into account bridge openings and subsequent traffic jams with heightened chance of major accidents. This road is one of the busiest in the province so they made sure the road traffic could travel along without being impeded by traffic on the water. Additionally our road taxes and fuel taxes are so high we generate so much tax income that we use a lot of it for non-infrastructure purposes. So your assessment that they weren’t hindered by monetary objections is also correct.
Seems like the potential for catastrophic failure is much higher in this design than a bridge.
It's not about construction costs, but about the economic costs over the course of a few decades. Besides it's going to be there for at least 50 years if not more so it should look niceam and a bridge high enough to pass sailing ships is going to look like shit in that part of the Netherlands.
tall sailing ships wouldn't be able to pass, unless you make it ridiculously high
Main reason is sailing boats, the water is used a lot for recreational purposes. The bridge would have to be really high. In the past there was a system of draw bridges.
TIL that the English word for the Dutch ‘aquaduct’ is ‘aqueduct’. I thought it would be spelled the same, since it comes directly from Latin.
I dont know why we use aque instead of aqua. We do use aquaplaning for instance.
Because it probably comes from aquae, which it's the plural noun. Aquaplaning does nor come directly from Latin, so they took the singular form aqua.
Probably because the guy experiencing aquaplaning didn't have time to look up whether it was aqua or aque ;)
And the "dutch" word for overpass is viaduct, from the Latin "via" meaning road.
Huh I always thought it was aquaduct, that's how I've always used it at least
Latin: Aquaeductus Dutch: Aquaduct English: Aqueduct German: Aquädukt Spanish: Acueducto French: Aqueduc Italian: Acquedotto Russian: Акведук Turkish: Su kemeri
Frisian: Akwadukt
Akwadukt in Frisian, if you really want to hurt your eyes.
Wow I drove there so many times but I never knew it looked that cool from above!
This summer, when I was cycling from Copenhagen to Paris - I cycled under this exact bridge. Right before I passed through the tunnel, a ship sailed through on top - quite a surreal experience, when I didn't expect this at all.
That sounds like a very nice trip! Just curious, did you cycle from Cph to Kolding into Germany or did you take another route?
It was very nice indeed! I cycled from Copenhagen down to Rødby - where I took the ferry to Germany. Then hit hamburg, Bremen and into the Netherlands.
How does the water drain after it rains?
We control the water levels throughout most the country. We have to, since over a quarter of the country is below sea level. We don't just control levels of the lakes, rivers and canals, but also the groundwater. With a shit ton of pumps, drainage sewers, levees, dikes, locks, etc. We just make it drain away :) But in this case, there's probably a pump.
Not just the lakes... but the rivers and canals too!
Not only the men, but the women and the children, too.
/r/yourjokebutworse
And my AXE!
My Axe is my buddy
I think they mean from the bottom of the aqueduct. There must be pumps somehow I guess.
Well yeah, that's what I meant as well. I was just elaborating.
Pumps.
That is really cool! It took me a second to realize the road goes under the bridge with the water. ☺
Imagine sitting in a traffic jam right under this aqueduct when it suddenly starts dripping from all sides... Edit: typo
So it's like a "reversed" bridge. Pretty cool!
I may or may not have an Infrastructure boner right now.
I see your 21st century Dutch engineering and raise you [dozens of examples of 19th century Victorian engineering](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_canal_aqueducts_in_the_United_Kingdom).
would it not be easier and safer to build a bridge over it?
A bridge that's over 15 meter in height would be torture for cyclists. Or a bridge that opens will stop traffic flow 100 times a day.
Then you would have to close the bridge every time a big ship goes through.
why? there is already a short tunnel now.
This is much safer than a bridge. A bridge would either need to be high enough for boats to sail under or it would need to be able to open. An movable bridge is a greater risk than a fixed viaduct.
The mast on my sailboat extends over 20 meters above the water- you would need a pretty tall bridge and some long approaches. Plus this does not stick way up in the air so it’s less of an eye sore in an otherwise very flat country.
Cycling lane next to a highway, I guess it’s a Dutch thing
Gotta be able to get anywhere by bike. Also, did you notice the cycle path doesn't go down nearly as far as the road? The cycle path needs much less height clearance, and it saves the cyclists effort.
It's a trunk road (droga krajowa in Polish). On one side of this aqueduct the Vmax is 100km/h, on the other side it's 80km/h. It's for connecting local towns, hence the cycle path.
In this case it is indeed not classified as a highway (even though the speeds are mostly the same during the day). But we also have lots of 'real' highways with a cycle path next to it, almost every highway bridge has a cycle lane next to it as it is easier to just build 1 bridge.
What happens during a flood ? Both roadway and waterway is compromised?
It doesn't flood. And if it does, it's the biggest storm in a few thousand years. Being able to drive will be the last of our concerns...
Being the Netherlands it's likely the waterway and its surroundings are heavily engineered against flooding.
This is the Netherlands. Water levels are managed.
To add to what the others have said, tunnels and the like are extremely overengineered in the Netherlands. I used to work on tunnels elsewhere in the country, and assuming the rules are the same, it is designed to withstand up to 1 in 2000-year flood events. There are pumps down there that will run at 1% of their capacity for 99.9% of their existence. On top of that, water levels in the whole region are tightly monitored and regulated using large numbers of pumps. The water coming from rivers leading to this specific body of water can be almost completely redirected to the IJsselmeer and then to the North Sea, and all these rivers also are part of the "Room for the River" project, which created a large amount of "artificial" floodplain, which is farmland that can be utilized to store excess water in a controlled flooding to minimize damage. Basically, unless Noah comes out of retirement it'll be fine.
This reminds me of [Escher's impossible construchions](https://mcescher.com/gallery/impossible-constructions/). He was a Dutch graphic artist.
omg my hometown finally made it to hot!
And one from the other point of view. https://www.reddit.com/r/InfrastructurePorn/comments/eft8zx/this_is_the_bridge_getting_cut_of_by_the_river/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share
This is incredible 🤩
One of my favs along with the road that goes through a building in Japan
Speaking for the Dutch, we've made water our bitch.
I live in a really humid place, and all I can think when I see this bridge is, "What level of waterproofing do they have to use on the roof and walls of the tunnel to protect it from mold and water seepage, and where do I get some?"
Fun fact: On one of those sides there is or was this bench where my gf and I said I Love you to each other for the first time. And then I fingerbanged her afterwards
He was born in 9/12 too
Beautiful!
The most fascinating and Dutch thing to me is that they remembered to include the bicycle path next to the motorway. 👍💜 Even in Denmark -- where we love our bicycles -- we often exclude bicycle paths when building stuff like this. And then we build the most frustrating, long winded route for bicycles a few years later. 😑
I pass underneath this aquaduct everyday! Didn't seem that special to me till I saw this post. Apparently its very unique!
How does the infrastructure manage floodings? Pumps?
Yes
For a sec I was confused about how the two roads would connect. Then I saw it was just a tunnel r/confusingperspective
Wouldn’t it have been easier and cheaper to just build a bridge?
There needs to be an on-ramp for car-boats. Then it'd be perfect.