12/26/838First documented storm surge in the North Sea; Approximately 2,500 deaths in what is now the Netherlands. 2/17/1164First Julian flood: 20,000 dead; First collapse of the Jade Bay, major damage in the Elbe area. 1/16/1219First Marcellus flood: 36,000 dead:...
Jan Asselijn (1610–1652): "Breach of St. Anthonis-Dike near Amsterdam", 1651. "During the night of 4-5 March 1651 the Saint Anthony’s Dike was breached near Amsterdam. Jan Asselijn portrayed the fiercely flowing water with a strong sense of drama. The billowing cloak...
Image of the swimming settlement in the movie "Waterworld" from 1995. The settlement is called "Atoll" in the movie but in fact it is a human made swimming construction. There is no natural land left known to the population of waterworld. This sequence from the movie...
As this documentary from German TV from 2022 clearly shows, designing floating cities is one thing, wanting to live there is quite another. I guess instinctively we all prefer "stability over floating flexibility", as director Kristin Siebert says, land over sea,...
The famous Thai architect and artist Sumet Jumsai speaks about solutions for building houses with and not against nature. Here is an excerpt:Our built environment evolved with nature, not against it. Our national trait is marked by resilience, inventiveness,...
In a very nice, comprehensive and extensive article, Dutch author Thijs Weststeijn, describes the role of culture in forming a climate conscience. The article not only describes the threats to cultural heritage the world over, particularly flooding, and the efforts to...
To counter the global sea level rise, several initiatives have formed to block seas off from the global water flow. The idea behind it: If you control the global water flow, you could control the sea level locally without having to tackle the problem globally. Of...
One of many images from the "World Stress Painting" series Dutch visual artist Olphaer den Otter began in 2019. He calls it: "A never-ending series that lends visual interpretation to the four elements, made by human intervention into catastrophes. A catalogue of...
The events on January 31. 1953 constitutes one of the moste severe floodings in the 20. Century in Europe. More than 1.800 lives were lost in the Netherlands, more than 300 in England and Schottland and 28 died in Belgium. As a direct result of the catastrophic events...
The All Saints' Flood (Dutch: Allerheiligenvloed) of 1570 was a disaster which happened on November 1, on the Dutch and German coast. Affected cities include Egmond, Bergen op Zoom and Saeftinghe. The print by Hans Moser depicts the Scheldt river overflowing....