Concept
The Zuiderzee Works (Zuiderzeewerken) is a man-made system of dams and dikes, land reclamation and water drainage work, in total the largest hydraulic engineering project undertaken by the Netherlands during the twentieth century. The project involved the damming of the Zuiderzee, a large, shallow inlet of the North Sea, and the reclamation of land in the newly enclosed water using polders. Its main purposes are to improve flood protection and create additional land for agriculture. The American Society of Civil Engineers declared these works, together with the Delta Works in the South-West of the Netherlands, as among the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. The "Netherlands" (literally the "Low Countries") have low flat topography, with half the land area below or less than one metre above sea level, and has for centuries been subject to periodic flooding by the sea. The seventeenth century saw early proposals to tame and enclose the Zuiderzee, but the ambitious ideas were impractical given the technology then available. From 1200 to 1900 AD the Dutch reclaimed of land from the sea and by draining lakes, a total of , but lost of land to the Zuiderzee. Hendrik Stevin in 1667 was the first to publish a study ("How the Fury of the North Sea may be stopped and Holland may be protected against it") proposing to drain the Zuiderzee. After the IJ and Haarlemmermeer were drained in the mid-19th century, van Diggelen, Kloppenburg, and Faddegon proposed that the Zuiderzee also be drained. Test drilling by the Zuiderzeevereeniging found that about three quarters of the Zuiderzee would be useful land. Plans were developed during the second half of the nineteenth century to protect areas from the force of the open sea and creating new agricultural land. Cornelis Lely (after whom Lelystad is named) was an ardent supporter, an engineer, and later government minister. His 1891 plan was the basis for the development of what were to become the Zuiderzee Works.
