Published on April 22, 2017

The Netherlands has many thousands of dikes. A pivotal element in the Dutch landscape and one of the oldest features of the country's extensive water management program, the dikes of the Netherlands have significant cultural, historical and environmental value. But despite their importance to the history, economy and culture of the Netherlands (and their contemporary international relevance as the world scrambles to develop and implement effective flood-control strategies), Dutch dikes have never been properly mapped out or systematically studied. Many of them fail to meet current safety standards, though they are still a ubiquitous presence in the Dutch landscape. In this book, built around research producing the first dike map of the Netherlands, the Dutch dikes are for the first time described, interpreted and portrayed in all of their surprising variety of functions and guises.