Flooding in river mouths: human caused or natural events? Five centuries of flooding events in the SW Netherlands, 1500–2000

摘要

This paper looks into flood events of the past 500 years in the SWNetherlands, addressing the issue of what kind of flooding events haveoccurred and which ones have mainly natural causes and which ones arepredominantly human induced. The flood events are classified into two majorcategories: (a) flood events that were caused during storm surges and(b) flood events which happened during warfare. From both categories aselection of flood events has been made. Each flood event is discussed interms of time, location, extent of the flooded area and specific conditions.Among these conditions, specific weather circumstances and how long theylasted, the highest water levels reached and dike maintenance are discussedas far as flood events caused during storm surges are concerned. Flood eventsduring warfare as both offensive and defensive strategies are relevant; thepaper demonstrates that although the strategic flood events obviously wereman-made, the natural feature, being the use of fresh water or sea water, ofthese events also played a major role. Flood events caused during storm surgemay have an obvious natural cause, but the extent of the flooding and damageit caused was largely determined by man.