00:00You know what? The Netherlands deserves a resilience Nobel, and I can prove it.
00:05Exhibit A. About a quarter of the country is below sea level, and half of it sits just three feet above.
00:12The highest point down south only reaches about a thousand feet. That's like the height of the Eiffel Tower.
00:19Exhibit B. It's the seventh lowest country on the planet and one of the most densely populated.
00:25Nearly four million people live below sea level, and yet they're totally fine.
00:30No scuba gear needed to get to work.
00:33Exhibit C. It's located right next to the North Sea, with massive rivers pouring into it from all over Europe.
00:40The Rhine, the Meuse, and the Scheldt rivers, all of them empty into the sea through the Netherlands.
00:46Now, with all that going on, this country should be under the ocean by now.
00:51And yet, it's not. In fact, they're not just staying afloat.
00:55They are expanding. But how? Well, I'm going to tell you.
00:59This is what the Netherlands looks like today.
01:02But this is what it looked like back in the 14th century.
01:05Now, compare these two, and you'll see that most of the land we see now used to be underwater.
01:12Take Skephal Airport. It's the fourth busiest in Europe, and probably the one you flew into, if you've ever been to Amsterdam.
01:19It was built on what used to be a lake, the Haarlemmer Lake, to be exact.
01:24But they drained it back in 1852, and now the airport sits over 13 feet below sea level.
01:31This isn't an isolated case, though.
01:33For the past 2,000 years, people there have been fighting tirelessly to push the ocean back and keep the water out of the land.
01:42They started by building things like canals, huge, winding waterways that channel excess water away from low-lying areas.
01:49And then there are the windmills.
01:52Yep, I'm talking about those classic cute Dutch windmills that are a tourist landmark.
01:57But they're not just for pictures.
01:59These things actually use wind power to pump water out during heavy rains or floods, sending it into the right channels where it can be safely drained.
02:08Most people in the Netherlands also depend on dikes to keep the water at bay.
02:12But these massive barriers act like the country's giant walls, stopping water from flooding into the land.
02:19But if something goes wrong, like if the water rises higher than the dike or the dike gets damaged, then people living nearby are in serious danger.
02:28But hey, at least their wooden shoes would float.
02:30Oops, never mind.
02:32But for now, let's say the rewards totally make the risks worth it.
02:36I mean, thanks to all these efforts over centuries, the Dutch have managed to reclaim 20% of their land from the sea.
02:43The biggest difference is wonderfully clear in Rotterdam.
02:47What started as a small settlement along a peat river back in the 14th century is now a city with the largest seaport in Europe.
02:55Check out this whole section here.
02:57This piece of land, for example, was added in just four years.
03:01So, how did they make land out of nothing?
03:04Well, in this case, they used these huge dredging ships, the same kind they used to build those insane palm islands in Dubai.
03:12These ships suck up sand from the ocean floor like a giant vacuum cleaner and then spray it onto certain areas to create new land.
03:20Once they had enough sand piled up and shaped just the way they wanted, they had to make sure it wouldn't get washed away by the sea again.
03:27So, they brought in around 20,000 massive stone blocks and placed them all around the edges, like building a giant protective wall.
03:36No doubt the Netherlands is one of Europe's most innovative countries when it comes to tackling rising waters.
03:42One of their biggest successes is probably the maize laundering, a storm surge barrier in South Holland.
03:48This engineering marvel was built in the 90s with one goal in mind, to take the full brunt of tidal surges from the sea.
03:56So, whenever the water is expected to rise 10 feet or more, this barrier automatically closes.
04:03And just like that, it protects 1.5 million people.
04:07That doesn't mean it closes all the time, though.
04:10In fact, it's pretty rare.
04:12In 25 years, this barrier has only closed twice.
04:15But with ocean waters rising twice as fast now as they did in the 20th century, experts think this barrier is going to be closing a lot more often in the future.
04:26The good news is, it's built to keep protecting the country for the next 100 years.
04:30And it can handle a 16-foot rise in ocean water before they will even need to think about making any major changes.
04:38Okay, we get it.
04:39The Netherlands is doing an awesome job keeping the water out.
04:42But what if, one day, they just can't handle it anymore and end up flooded?
04:48What could things look like by the year 2100, for example?
04:52Well, this is how much of the country could be underwater in a worst-case scenario.
04:57It would push people to move further inland, more to the east and south of the country.
05:02That would be a huge challenge, though.
05:04If that happened today, authorities would have to squeeze over 18 million people into a much smaller area.
05:10So they'd have to think up some serious urban solutions.
05:13Those cute, cozy little Dutch houses, you know, the ones with two or three floors, would be replaced by massive skyscrapers just to fit everyone in.
05:23So farming might go vertical.
05:25People would start growing food in tall buildings instead of sprawling fields.
05:30And most every rooftop would have some kind of green space, like a garden or a park,
05:34so people can still enjoy nature even if they're stuck in the middle of a busy city.
05:38To protect historic buildings, places like Amsterdam would have huge raised dikes surrounding them.
05:45But even with all that, life would still change big time.
05:49People wouldn't really live on the ground floor anymore, since it would be too risky with the flooding.
05:54Those lower levels would stay empty, and they would start building new rooms or living spaces up top.
06:00They'd also be raised walkways, connecting everything, kind of like a whole new ground level in the sky.
06:06Boats and small water transport would become normal for getting around.
06:11And experts even think we'd still have super-fast trains running through big dikes to connect all the cities.
06:17So yeah, even in a crazy apocalyptic scenario, the Netherlands would still survive a massive flood.
06:24They'd just need to adapt.
06:25But what's fascinating is that water isn't just something the Dutch fight against.
06:31It's also something they completely rely on, especially when it comes to business and trade.
06:36Because the Netherlands sits right on the North Sea and has all these rivers, like I mentioned at the beginning of the video, remember?
06:44It became this natural hub for shipping and trading centuries ago.
06:47It's like Europe's gateway for goods.
06:51And since the Netherlands is the world's second-largest exporter of foods and agricultural products by value, that's critical for them.
06:59Take the port of Rotterdam, for example.
07:01It is huge, one of the biggest and busiest ports in the world and easily the largest in Europe.
07:07It's like the ultimate pit stop for cargo ships coming in and out of the continent.
07:11So much stuff moves through there – containers, oil, cars, food, you name it.
07:17Water makes it super easy to move things around.
07:20Not just within the Netherlands, but to places like Germany, Belgium, and France too.
07:26Barges on the rivers are essentially the Dutch version of 18-wheeler trucks.
07:30So yeah, while they've worked hard to keep the water out, they've also made it work for them economically in a big way.
07:37Now, let's talk about Dutch chocolate.
07:39Wait, I've run out of time. Maybe later. Bye for now.
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