Dutch Water Control Systems, 900-1990; A Multifunctional Common Pool Resource: A Research Proposal

Abstract

"During the 8th and 9th centuries the people living in the Low Countries, presently known as The Netherlands, experienced a major change in the physical-geographical environment in which they lived. Up to then they had inhabited a mainly dry land, shaped during the last ice age (Pleistocene; diluvial grounds)and the following warmer period (Holocene; alluvial grounds) starting 10,000 B.C. and continuing to the present day.

"At several instances in the last millennia this territory was penetrated by the sea, a phenomenon geologists call transgression,followed by periods of retraction (also known as: regression). During a regression phase the coastal area was protected through the build-up of an array of dunes. Due to global changes in weather, temperature,and sea currents, the Low Countries suffered a new sea-penetration from the eight-hundreds onwards, referred to as the medieval transgression. This changed the environment entirely, especially in the western (coastal) part of the country. The higher diluvial grounds in the east and south were by and large unaffected"