When will the Netherlands disappear?
It won&#x27;t. NL has been preparing quite hard for a rise in sea  level and&#x2F;or worse storms. The port of IJmuiden is being overhauled, the shoreline defenses have all been raised, in some places only about 3 ft, in others much more depending on the likelihood of flooding. A bigger problem is that during an extended period of high water that the rivers won&#x27;t be able to drain into the North Sea and studies are being made on how to deal with that, the &#x27;room for the river&#x27; (&quot;ruimte voor de rivier&quot;) plan is one of many ways in which change can be made. Other options are to use the IJsselmeer as buffer storage and to vastly increase pumping capacity.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ruimtevoorderivier.nl&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ruimtevoorderivier.nl&#x2F;</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gemalen.nl&#x2F;gemaal_detail.asp?gem_id=264" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gemalen.nl&#x2F;gemaal_detail.asp?gem_id=264</a><p>(Photo 4 is particularly interesting, that&#x27;s one of three such pumps, and this is an old one and now relatively small, it is one of many such pumps)<p>The alarmist tone of the article is a bit strange, if there is a place where I feel safe with respect to water it is here, there is an extensive network of canals, pumps, monitoring and reserve capacity on just about everything to deal with water and flooding. Compared to how other countries fare (annual news from France, Germany, Spain and elsewhere shows extensive damage) we do pretty good here.<p>Of course on large time scales there is a real risk and it will cost a small fortune to deal with all that but with dikes as a well understood mechanism to keep the see out and one of the wealthiest nations on a per area basis it would highly surprise me if NL were the worst hit.<p>Consider another angle: if the problem had not been dealt with successfully in the past this country would not even exist today.