Sweet & Salt

Focusing on the evolving relationship the Dutch have with water, this is an optimistic, instructive and beautifully presented volume that should be required reading for urban planners, architects, city officials and civil engineers.

Tracy Metz, Maartje van den Heuvel, Sweet & Salt: Water and the Dutch, nai010, Rotterdam 2012 (304 pp., 29,50€ )

Sweet & Salt is a book about the evolving relationship the Dutch have with water — the ever-present element that defines the landscape of the Netherlands while also looming as a threat and serving as a vital resource for industry, everyday sustenance and aesthetic inspiration. The volume is organized in alternating chapters on water management, contributed by Tracy Metz, and art history, contributed by Maartje van den Heuvel — a pairing that works well and underscores the polyvalent nature of water in Dutch society.

"God created the earth, but the Dutch created the Netherlands," is a proverb that neatly encapsulates Dutch history as characterized by geographic fate: more than half the country sits below sea level and vast portions of its populated or cultivated land has been claimed and reclaimed from the water over the course of several centuries. Of the 41,500 square km that makes up the Netherlands (just twice the area of the US state of New Jersey), nearly 20% is water and inundation is a constant menace from both storm surges in the North Sea as well as swells in the major rivers that flow from Europe through the Netherlands to its delta. Consequently, Dutch water management expertise and innovation has developed steadily over time and materializes today as vast and sophisticated systems of water management and defenses, from dikes, drainage canals and locks to Brobdingnagian flood gates.

Tracy Metz, Maartje van den Heuvel, <em>Sweet & Salt: Water and the Dutch</em>, nai010, Rotterdam 2012. Cover — Tracy Metz, Maartje van den Heuvel, *Sweet & Salt: Water and the Dutch*, nai010, Rotterdam 2012. Cover

This hard-won competency in planning and engineering stands as a national priority, especially since the tragic North Sea flood of 1953 (Watersnoodramp) which left more than 2,500 dead and prompted a series of grand, national projects to erect water defenses, culminating in the Delta Works. This series of defenses is designed to protect the estuaries of the rivers Rhine, Meuse and Scheldt and is considered one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Today the Netherlands is peerless in its water management acumen. In fact, Dutch flood prevention expertise and civil engineering consulting is becoming known as one of the Netherland's most high-value exports. The sensibly designed dike may yet overtake the tulip: Sweet & Salt thoroughly chronicles how these skills are finding customers for export, from China and Vietnam to the United States and India. Almost every waterfront or riverfront municipality is considering the threat of water afresh and more seriously as the new reality of a changed climate is accepted and the number extreme weather tragedies multiply.

Tracy Metz, Maartje van den Heuvel, <em>Sweet & Salt: Water and the Dutch</em>, nai010, Rotterdam 2012. Page detail — Tracy Metz, Maartje van den Heuvel, *Sweet & Salt: Water and the Dutch*, nai010, Rotterdam 2012. Page detail

A larger issue that keeps Dutch engineers busy and worried is one shared by hundreds of millions of people throughout the world: water salinization or the conversion of ever greater quantities of water from "Sweet" (fresh) to "Salt." Sweet & Salt's most urgent essay explains how climate change is driving a sharp increase in the amount of salt water pushing its way into dunes and up river channels in the Netherlands, threatening agriculture as well as drinking water supplies. At the moment, the Dutch are using a large majority of their fresh water supply to keep the salt seawater out and flush drainage ditches. Then there is a second related threat increasing the potential damage from the first: as hotter weather dries out fresh water supplies in rivers like the Rhine, fresh water for flushing out the rising sea also becomes scarce. The dimensions of this worldwide problem are staggering, with the incursion of salt water threatening the livelihoods of millions in low lying areas or deltas in countries such as Vietnam, Indonesia, China and India.

The volume also demonstrates how the Dutch are altering their relationship to water, how they are beginning to explore the question "How can we work with the water rather than against it?"

Sweet & Salt also demonstrates how the Dutch are altering their relationship to water, how they are beginning to explore the question "How can we work with the water rather than against it?" A representative example is the zandmotor (sand motor), a strategy of dumping, all at once, a large volume of sand strategically such that the water flow naturally deposits it slowly along the coast. This approach is considerably faster and less expensive than a conventional sand deposit work along the shore. In what might be a sign of a new interest in partnering with rather than subduing natural systems is the use of trees to enhance water defense: on one new dike, at the north-eastern tip of the Noordwaard, a band of willow trees 80 meters wide has been planted to cushion the force of waves when water levels are high. According to Ralph Gaastra, a local environment manager quoted in the book, "Never before has a willow wood been formally recognized as a component of a primary water defense. It's a world first for the Netherlands!"

Sweet & Salt highlights the work of pioneering designers and architects including Koen Olthuis who stands out for his creative approach to building flexible structures on the water, some of which are meant to rise and fall with the water level. These eye-opening projects are a great strength of the book and should encourage more adaptive, multi-functional and nature-integrated strategies to building. The volume also briefly touches on the economic and political dimensions of water management, and the inherent conflicts and tensions embedded in the effort to build, maintain and pay for water defenses and execute a strategic plan nationwide.

Although such examples are given space and detail, the book could be strengthened by some analysis of how vulnerability to flooding is distributed across segments of society. This is particularly relevant today, where difficult decisions must be made about where to invest limited infrastructure budgets. Undoubtedly this creates tensions in the Netherlands, where after 26 years of uninterrupted economic growth, the national economy contracted over 3% in 2008 and has limped along at growth of under 2% since.

There is material in the book on the disaster in New Orleans from Hurricane Katrina, and the disproportionate suffering inflicted by that disaster on economically-disadvantaged minorities, but little of this is related back to the Dutch experience. In a recent TED talk given by Olthuis about his strategies for building on or near the water he mentioned that ten years ago people said he was crazy, that "living on the water is just for the poor." If or how this has changed in the Netherlands and how it relates to disaster vulnerability is an important question left for another book. Nevertheless, Sweet & Salt is dense with facts and perceptive observations about an issue of global importance. It is an optimistic, instructive and beautifully presented volume that should be required reading for urban planners, architects, city officials and civil engineers everywhere in our era of climate change. William Myers

Sweet & Salt

Focusing on the evolving relationship the Dutch have with water, this is an optimistic, instructive and beautifully presented volume that should be required reading for urban planners, architects, city officials and civil engineers.

Latest News

Latest on Domus