EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Life At Sea Level

Agricultural fields
The Netherlands

Explanation:  Welcome to the edge of tomorrow.

This is life at sea level, here in the Netherlands just a few kilometers from the North Sea coastline.  With elevations ranging as low as 30 feet (7 meters) below sea level -- indeed half of the country lies below sea level -- the Netherlands is poised to lead the way in dealing with issues of changing climates and, most relevant here, rising sea levels.  

A full quarter of the country consists of arable land but less than one percent has permanent crops.  Incursion of saline sea water may be a major threat to the near future of agriculture here.  

According to one source, a rise of sea level by a few meters would flood thousands of square kilometers of arable and inhabited land.  Even now, only its maze of canals, dikes, and levees has staved off what may become the inevitable.  Few options are available other than upgrading the flood protection system, a costly but perhaps essential expenditure to help assure safety for the country's dense population.  Whether such heroic measures will be successful, and for how long, is wrought with uncertainty.

These are surely unsettled times, here on the edge of tomorrow.
  

The town of Nijkerk, Netherlands, is but one of many that sits
on the cusp of flooding in the face of rising sea levels.