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Mudflats are situated at the threshold between water and land. Within this ecological zone, mudflats contain species that enable larger ecological communities to exist and thrive, including over 300 species of commercial value.

Undamming the Dutch Delta

By Kimberly Garza and Sarah Thomas

This project highlights how strategic adoption of hydrological dynamics and a re-conceptualization of the Normaal Amsterdam Peil can act as a major structuring foundation of urban form in the Dutch Delta region. Closed, linear and engineered controls make way for the flexibility of soft systems . Ecology becomes infrastructural and the future of the city of the Dutch Delta becomes inseparable from the future of the estuary.
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Dry Land Agriculture is the dominant land use pattern in the Netherlands. Opening of the Haringvliet Dam creates new land-use opportunities: agriculture to aquaculture. Bivalve and Fish economies and ecologies: An illustrative cross-section is taken through the Rhine-Meuse river, intersecting Tiengmeten island, demonstrates the bivalve economies established through the opening of the Haringvliet Dam. By utilizing the existing dike and island as a transportation network and storage infrastructure for bivalve and fish industries, dry land agriculture areas are transformed into robust productive landscapes. From oysters to mussels, the area is economically revitalized through robust estuarine ecology.

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Pearling and Oyster Ecologies and Economies: This illustrative cross-section is taken through the Rhine-Meuse river, intersecting the city of Dordrecht, demonstrates the economies established through the harvesting of pearl oysters. The city of Dordrecht’s edge is historically defined by a linear dike system, is now transformed into a meandering dike system. Corridors for pearl oysters and cockles are made available through the weaving of the dike, in and out of the cityscape, creating saltwater pockets for cultivation. The dike, historically used as a flood control barrier, serves a multitude of functions for the pearling oyster industry: commercial transportation, collection area, docking infrastructure and storage facilities economy and establish a cultural identity for the city of Dordrecht. Mudflat Habitation: This illustrative cross-section is taken through the Rhine-Meuse river, demonstrates the habitat established through the opening of the Haringvliet Dam. Through the establishment of mudflats, new ecologies emerge along a lengthened gradient, enabling housing corridors, recreational pockets and dynamic species communities.

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Controlling the River: Despite a history of coastal defense strategies, the Dutch coastline has eroded 5km in four centuries. Strategies ranging from kelp dikes, to Delta Works Projects, to sand nourishment strategies have been efforts to hold a line between the land and the sea. Specifically, the damming of the shoreline has drastically altered the ecology of the delta and the Nieuwe Waterweg being the only access to the sea. Constructed Ecology: Several of the estuaries that once exchanged fresh and salt water are now transformed into fresh water basin closed by linear engineering systems. This project focuses on opening the Haringvliet Dam (constructed in 1971 as a Delta Works project) to re-establish a mixing zone of fresh and salt water.

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Historical Economies: During the Middle Ages, the Dutch economy was generated by the estuary, an economy that was aquaculture based. Historic paintings depicts female fishmongers and the robust fish ecology that once existed. Today, the Netherlands imports a majority of its bivalves that once were locally cultivated from France, Italy and North America. A Dynamic Normaal Amsterdam Peil: Past engineering strategies created a binary relationship between land and water—this binary thinking is a product of the Nomaal Amsterdams Peil (NAP). The NAP is a vertical datum in which to gauge water level rise, and it represents one set level: “normal.” Established in 1675, this datum has been integrated into Dutch culture and exported internationally, and is recognized as sea level rise. The concept of the NAP has established policies, regulations and laws The plan diagram illustrates the hydrological configurations of the last 1000 years (with the darkest gradient as the current hydrological pattern) and the section illustrates the shifting water elevations above the NAP documenting the water level at two of the Netherlands most significant flood events in 1916 and 1953.

BRACKET [goes soft]

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