Waterways and Water Bodies: Guides to Dutch History

Anyone who has ever been on a quest for the history of Dutch cities and the surrounding landscapes will know that water will invariably pop up as a rich and important source of information. Over many centuries, the country has not only learnt to live with the water, but managed to make a virtue of necessity by turning vast areas of waterlogged soil into farmland, generously interspersed with waterways. These days we know Dutch waterways and water bodies mainly as recreational and attractive spots. In the past, however, water was – and luckily in many cases still is – a vital component of the country’s infrastructure, used for transportation and the subject of an intricate system of water management bodies and security measures.

The genesis of the Netherlands as a land of water

The western part of the Netherlands lies largely below sea level. In order to facilitate intensive use of the land, (from the 17th century onwards) polders* have been created that drain into canals, forming an intricate system of open waterways. Before water management reached this level of sophistication, cities were nearly always founded on higher grounds. In the absence of a true system of paved roads, transportation between cities mainly took place over the fairways that cut through the intermediate low-lying land. The Netherlands had a fine-meshed network of waterways consisting of rivers, canals and lakes, with the occasional lock to take care of differing water levels.

In the 19th and 20th centuries, with the industrial revolution taking hold, the Netherlands was (in part through large-scale drainage and building of dikes) increasingly made accessible over land via road and rail, a process during which large stretches of the network of waterways became redundant or unusable through the building of roads, bridges and dams. These days, only the uniquely efficient transport of cargo over the great rivers and waterways is what remains of the transportation network of yore. All transport of passengers, with the exception of the occasional ferry, takes place over land. Increasingly, however, because of its recreational potential and considerations of ecology and water quality, the fine-meshed system of waterways is in many places gradually being restored to its former glory. 

Too much had been lost to pragmatic or even opportunistic considerations, it was believed. 

Through the building of moveable bridges, navigable locks and the reopening of crucial fairways, large parts of the Netherlands are being made navigable over water again, with renewed visibility of the surrounding history as a welcome side effect.

Obviously, water also played an important part within the cities themselves. Water served as a defense line around the cities, as a conduit for draining away excess and contaminated water and letting in fresh water and as an access way for people and goods. Historically, cities therefore almost invariably had a surrounding canal that served as a first defense, a harbour with adjoining trading square and canals that were lined with warehouses and private houses and formed the main conduit for the cities’ water management.

Until the last quarter of the 19th century this was the standard look a Dutch city offered, but from then on, just as in the countryside, enormous changes began to unfold. The growth of industrialisation brought an increasing number of people into the compact cities, where living conditions and hygiene were abominable. The canals (houses-quays-water) were used as open sewers for the drainage of human excrement and household and industrial waste, turning them into a rat-infested conduit for the spread of all kinds of diseases. In an effort to stem this intolerable development, many canals were filled in and first steps were taken towards an underground system of sewage pipes. In many places, a growing need for extra room for rail and road traffic led to even more filling-in of urban canals and waterways. The network of water streets disintegrated, a trend reinforced by new water management approaches that further obviated their need. The necessity of defending cities by surrounding them with water had, because of development of new techniques of warfare, become a thing of the past much earlier. In many places, surrounding canals and harbour basins were filled in to make room for railway stations or car parks. In many Dutch cities, street names like Gedempte Gracht (filled-in canal) or Oude Haven (old harbour) still remind us of the erstwhile omnipresence and importance of water in and around these cities.

As we mentioned before, there is a growing realisation that the true value of water in our everyday surroundings has been underestimated. 

Especially in city environments, the zeal with which authorities have taken up the filling-in of waterways has in hindsight perhaps been premature and ill-considered. The remaining water is increasingly seen as a valuable and attractive commodity by both city inhabitants and their local governments. Water sports and recreational activities are facilitated through the construction of landing-stages for water buses, rental boats and private recreational vessels, while beer gardens, outdoor cafés and formal and informal sunbathing areas are popping up all along the quaysides. With water as a relaxing, ever-changing backdrop, concerts, outdoor events, bank holidays and celebrations take place on and alongside canals. Even competitive swimming events are being held, thanks to the greatly improved water quality of the inner-city waterways.

Amsterdam’s Canals

Although Amsterdam is built upon boggy land and is a city of canals par excellence, large stretches of water have been filled in. But its famous 17th century canal belt has been preserved. This bold extension of the old city, which comprised of four canals forming concentric half-circles around its erstwhile centre, has been a key factor in the city’s economic prosperity. The sludge from the canal basins themselves was used to raise the land between the new waterways, thereby making it suitable for building. On average, the width of the canals is 2.5 times the width of the adjoining quaysides. Every 200 metres, there is a radial street with a connecting bridge, allowing free movement of traffic along the canals. The Amsterdam canal belt has 80 bridges in all.

In the era in which the canal belt was constructed, the water in the inner city was a mixed blessing. The water exuded an enormous stench, to name but one nuisance. Later, cars began to dominate the quaysides, but since then, strict regulations seem to have tamed the beast. These days, the canals are a sought-after location for urban living, hotels and offices, regularly serving as a stage for recreational activities and cultural events.

Urban developers, often driven by historical considerations, increasingly take water as a prime starting point when drawing up development or renovation plans and often advocate to re-dig filled-in basins to bring back the water. With the banning or discouragement of motor vehicles from inner cities as an added weapon, they strive for future-proof, clean and attractive cities where historic waterways again figure prominently. Let’s take a look at two recent examples.

Delft Spoorzone

De Spoorzone (literally: rail zone) in Delft is situated next to the historic city centre. In 1965, the railway lines, until then running on ground level, were elevated to a railway viaduct, while the adjacent canal (once part of the city’s defense) was filled in and converted into a parking space. Together with the broad access roads, parking slots and trams, the viaduct dominated the area for half a century, greatly reducing its attractiveness for residents and visitors.

The traffic circulation-area it had become over the years was noisy, inhospitable and unsafe, and cut the city’s heart in two. Since 2000, work had been going on to restore and revitalise the area, including the building of a state-of-the-art railway tunnel plus an underground station and car park, the reintroduction of water and greenery and the building of new office and residential buildings. The development allowed for the successful reconnection of the two adjacent parts of the city, where the history of the city, with water on all sides, is instantly recognisable.

Resurfacing River: The Nieuwe Mark in Breda 

Since 2005 the city of Breda has been working on the restoration of De Mark, the river on the banks of which the city was built and expanded over the ages. In 1946, in what at the time was seen as a stroke of visionary genius, the once indispensable waterway was filled in to make way for road transport. In a full reversal, the post-war boulevard has now been dug up to make room for a fine-meshed and attractive system of waterways that will play a key role in the city’s water management.

For centuries, water has been a fixture in Dutch cities. Even now, in an era in which the belief in the manipulability of nearly everything is still going strong, the old canals and waterways play an indispensable part in water management. In order to cope with increasingly extreme precipitation levels and a rising sea level, they are increasingly used as conduits that help to keep residential areas dry. Revealing the history of urban locations, in order to make them more attractive as public dwelling spaces, goes hand in hand with better and more natural water storage and buffering, ecology and surface water quality. Water was, is and will remain one of the most important elements for the overall design of the cities in the Netherlands.

(* Polders: reclaimed areas surrounded by dikes and drainage canals, allow for intensive use of the land.)