| The south-west winds cause a moderate maritime climate, leaving the Netherlands with cool summers and mild winters. Even in the summer weather can vary with temperature extremes. These intense changes are especially noticeable in the spring and autumn. Winter months usually consist of clear, frosty days and rain is common year round.
During some heavy storms in the past, flooding caused the Dutch coastlines to change considerably. To combat the flooding the Dutch build their famous dykes and installed windmills to pump water out of the land below sea level.
After the North Sea flood of 1953, a commission was installed which had to come up with a plan to research the causes and seek measures to prevent such disasters in future. They revised some of the old plans and came up with the so called "Delta Works".
The Delta Works are a series of constructions built between 1950 and 1997 in the southwest of the Netherlands to protect a large area of land around the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta from the sea. The works consist of dams, sluices, locks, dikes, and storm surge barriers. The aim of the dams, sluices, and storm surge barriers was to shorten the Dutch coastline, thus reducing the number of dikes that had to be raised.
The American Society of Civil Engineers has declared the works to be one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World together with the Zuiderzee Works.
Today, approximately 27 percent of the Netherlands is actually below sea level. This area is home to over 60 percent of the country's population of 15.8 million people. The Netherlands, which is approximately the size of the U.S. states Connecticut and Massachusetts combined, has an approximate average elevation of 11 meters (36 feet). Ask a question
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