Zuiderzee Works - The Flevolands

The Flevolands

The period following World War II was spent restoring the Wieringermeerpolder and catching up with work on the Noordoostpolder, but it was not long before attention turned towards the next project: Oostelijk Flevoland (Eastern Flevoland), which at 540 km² was the largest of the new polders. In 1950 work commenced on several construction-islands in the middle of the IJsselmeer, the largest of which would be Lelystad-Haven which housed a community of dike-builders. The experience of the Noordoostpolder had shown that groundwater from the higher old mainland would flow to the lower new land, causing subsidence and dehydration in the old land. It was therefore decided to geohydrologically detach the new polders from the mainland by leaving a string of peripheral lakes in between the two, requiring a much longer dike of 90 km to encircle the polder.

The plans for a single south-eastern polder had given way to two separate polders with a joint hydrological infrastructure, with a dividing dike in the middle, the Knardijk, which would keep one polder safe should the other be flooded. The two main drainage canals that would traverse the dike could be closed by weirs in such an event. The eastern polder would be the first of the two and the encircling dike began to take form in 1951, progressing nicely until the North Sea flood of 1953 struck the south-western Netherlands, for which people and machinery were transferred for repair work (further work here would later result in the Delta Works). Work on Eastern Flevoland resumed in 1954 and the dike was closed on September 13, 1956. The pumping stations started draining the polder that same day and they completed their task in June 1957. Three were built: the Wortman (diesel powered) by Lelystad-Haven, the Lovink near Harderwijk and the Colijn (both electrically powered) along the northern dike beside the Ketelmeer. All three were built with extra capacity with the future southern polder in mind.

A new element in the design of this polder was the intention to establish a larger city to serve as a regional centre for all the polders and perhaps the capital of a potential new province. This city, located in the centre of the reclaimed lands, would be Lelystad (1966), named after the man who had played a crucial role in the design and realisation of the Zuiderzee Works. Other more conventional settlements were already in existence by then; Dronten, the local major town, was founded in 1962, followed by two smaller satellite villages, Swifterbant and Biddinghuizen in 1963. These last three were incorporated in the new municipality of Dronten on January 1, 1972; Lelystad would be large enough to form its own municipality, which it became on January 1, 1980.

Though agriculture was initially again the main purpose of the polder, the post-war period saw a shift in the design goals of the new polders. More farming communities, similar to the Noordoostpolder, had originally been planned, but changing agricultural needs and increased motorised mobility meant many were unnecessary and thus their number was eventually reduced to two. Work on one village, Larsen, was just about to start when it was cancelled. However, the amount of agricultural land did not increase; rather it diminished as a result of the building of Lelystad (a city envisioned to eventually house at least 100,000 inhabitants, but in 2005 had only 70,000) and assigning more than just infertile soil for forests and nature reserves, a trend that would continue in the next polder.

Zuidelijk Flevoland (Southern Flevoland) is the name of the fourth polder of the Zuiderzee Works, built adjacent to its larger sibling, Eastern Flevoland. Since its northeastern dike, the aforementioned Knardijk, already existed, only 70 km of the dike remained to be built. Starting in early 1959, this was finished in October 1967.

Only one pumping station ('gemaal'), the diesel powered De Blocq van Kuffeler, needed to be built because of the hydrological union of the two Flevolands; once the polder was finished it would simply join the previous three in maintaining the water-level of both polders. Before it could do that however the newest gemaal had to first drain the 430 km² polder of its water all by itself, completing its job in May 1968.

Due to the geographically favourable location of the southern polder to the heavily urbanised centre of the Netherlands and in particular Amsterdam, the planners devised a design that would include a large new urban area, to be called Almere, in order to relieve the housing shortage and increasing overcrowding on the old land. It was to be divided into 3 major settlements, initially; the first, Almere-Haven (1976), situated along the Gooimeer (one of the peripheral lakes), the second and largest, Almere-Stad (Almere City) (1980), which was to fulfil the role of city centre, and the third, Almere-Buiten (1984), to the northeast towards Lelystad.

The area between Lelystad and Almere was designated for heavy industries, but since enough space was still available on the old land for those industries this part of the polder was left alone for the mean time. After only a couple of years this landscape of shallow pools, islets and swamps became a popular resting and foraging area for many species of waterfowl, to the extent that it rapidly turned into a nature reserve of national significance. Although accidental in origin, the Oostvaardersplassen as they are known became by the 1970s the definitive destination for this section of the polder.

The centre of the polder most closely resembles the pre-war polders in that it is almost exclusively agricultural. In contrast, the south-eastern part is dominated by extensive forests. It is also home to the only other settlement of the polder, Zeewolde (1984), again a more conventional town acting as the local centre. Zeewolde became a municipality at the same time as Almere, on January 1, 1984, which in the case of Zeewolde meant that the municipality existed before the town itself, with only farms in the surrounding land to be governed until the town started to grow.