::corngrowth

gallery

I show you this image, not because it's, from photographic point of view, an artistic one, but because it might be interesting to you. I've tried to depict the phenomenon 'below sea level threat'.

Think that you may know that most part of my small country is below sea level. We can only survive by the construction/use of 'polders'. A polder is a below sea-level lying tract of land, reclaimed from the sea, and enclosed by embankments known as 'dikes'. Because it's reclaimed from a muddy or sandy sea bottom, most of my country therefore is flat as flat can be, lol.

My picture shows at its left side, near the small building on top of the 'dike', the sea (think it can be seen only at full screen size). In the middle you see the 'dike', and at the right side you see a far lower polder. Think the image shows clearly that the 'dike' is protecting us from flooding. Dangerous, isn't it? Although it went wrong in the past (please, therefore check-out this link and this one), we got used to live this way. The story of the 'hero' Hans Brinker causes a smile on the face to the people of my country as it's a fairy tale!

PS: to get a proper impression of the size of the 'dike', you can use the bikers on the bike path as reference.