Quote Originally Posted by Hans Weilenmann View Post
Ed,

The Netherlands have so much surface water, you'd be hard pressed to stand anywhere and not have some form of water in your sight.

Folks often think that most of the protect-from-flooding effort here is on preventing the North Sea from flooding the one-third of the Netherlands which is situated a couple feet below sea level. Not so.

The Netherlands are at the receiving end of two of Europe's major rivers, the Rhein and the Waal. There is a long standing, well thought out and maintained 24x7x365 operation to pump fresh water out of the low lying region.

No matter where you go, the water table is never more than about two feet down. Droughts or hose-bans are not any concern here for the Lowlanders

Cheers,
Hans W
Hans,
Where I live a lot of people can't dig down two feet because they would hit bedrock. We are flood prone, too. Our floods are flash floods in which even a modest stream can rise a couple of meters in an hour. The streams also go down fast. The reseult is that some of our streams are very dynamic in their form with gravel bars and pools appearing, moving, and disappearing. Sometimes dramatic changes occur in a day or two. I suspect your floods take longer to drain. Now I'll have to worry about my "friends in low places". Still, I hope there is some good fishing for y'all in the canals, streams, and ponds.

Regards,
Ed