Redrawn Dutch coastline raising awareness of rising sea levels

Bicycling tour follows ‘new’ coastline

AMERSFOORT, the Netherlands - Frisian-born Dutch Deputy Transport Minister Tineke Huizinga has sent off a cycling tour along an imaginary new Dutch coastline. The 50-kilometre tour, started at a café in the inland town of Amersfoort, follows a route where the new coastline would lay if sufficient action was not taken to reinforce the current coastline from rising levels of the sea.

According to government projections, the new coastline would roughly run from the northern city of Groningen via the central city of Amersfoort to the city of Breda in the south. Based on the projections, the densely populated western provinces of Zeeland, North and South Holland as well as parts of North Brabant, Utrecht and Overijssel would be claimed by the sea. Huizinga’s home province, Friesland, which is famed for its lakes and watersports, would also disappear under water.

The bicycle tour is part of a government sponsored campaign, dubbed "The Netherlands lives with water" to raise awareness of an impending disaster. The campaign is designed to help promote the government’s plans to save the low-lying Delta country from both troubling scenarios, too much and too little water.

Dutch water boards, which maintain dikes, drainage systems, sewer and fresh water supply, are marketing water management know-how internationally.