Europe’s new-look winter: floods, high sea levels and melting glaciers

MARK HARBERS has arguably the most important job in the Netherlands. As minister of infrastructure, he is responsible for making sure the enormous dykes and floodgates meant to protect the country against rising sea levels get built. This winter has made it clear how crucial that job will be. In early January there were high-water alerts all over the country. At Marken, an old fishing village north of Amsterdam, waves lapped just a couple of metres from the top of the dyke—well above the floors of the houses behind it. The Markermeer, part of a bay that splits the northern Netherlands down its middle, reached its highest level ever, 45cm above the national benchmark known as Normal Amsterdam Level.

The problem, Mr Harbers explains, was “a combination of three factors”: rain inside the country, rain elsewhere in Europe, and unlucky winds. The Netherlands forms the delta of the Rhine river, which drains much of Germany. Weeks’ worth of rain in central Europe was flowing north and building up in the Markermeer and the IJsselmeer (another bay), which are separated from the North Sea by dykes. The dykes’ spillways can only vent water when the sea is lower than the bays. But storm winds from the north were keeping the sea too high. As the water backed up, the authorities who run the country’s vast canal network opened locks, flooding farmland to disperse the load. Within days the waters ebbed.