1.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation
2.
Wadden Sea
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The Wadden Sea is an intertidal zone in the southeastern part of the North Sea. It lies between the coast of northwestern continental Europe and the range of Frisian Islands, forming a body of water with tidal flats. It is rich in biological diversity, in 2009, the Dutch and German parts of the Wadden Sea were inscribed on UNESCOs World Heritage List and the Danish part was added in June 2014. The Wadden Sea is one of the worlds seas whose coastline has been most modified by humans, via systems of dikes and causeways on the mainland, within the Netherlands it is bounded from the IJsselmeer by the Afsluitdijk. The islands in the Wadden Sea are called the Wadden Sea Islands or Frisian Islands and these are remnants of the once expansive and now submerged Doggerland. However, on the westernmost Dutch island, Texel, the Frisian language has not been spoken for centuries, the Danish Wadden Sea Islands have never been inhabited by Frisians. The outlying German island of Heligoland, although one of the Frisian Islands, is not situated in the Wadden Sea. The German part of the Wadden Sea was the setting for the 1903 Erskine Childers novel The Riddle of the Sands, the word wad is Dutch for mud flat. The area is typified by extensive mud flats, deeper tidal trenches and the islands that are contained within this. The landscape has been formed for a part by storm tides in the 10th to 14th centuries. The present islands are a remnant of the coastal dunes. The islands are marked by dunes and wide, sandy beaches towards the North Sea, the impact of waves and currents, carrying away sediments, is slowly changing the layout of the islands. For example, the islands of Vlieland and Ameland have moved eastwards through the centuries, having lost land on one side, the Wadden Sea is famous for its rich flora and fauna, especially birds. Hundreds of thousands of waders, ducks, and geese use the area as a stopover or wintering site. Some species that are extinct are still available here. Wadden Sea is an important habitat for two species of seals, harbor and grey seals, North Atlantic right whales and gray whales were once seen in the region, using the shallow, calm waters for either feeding and breeding before they were completely wiped out by shore-based whaling. These two species are now thought to be extinct or remnant populations of which low-tens at best survive. One whale, possibly a right whale, was observed close to beaches on Texel in the West Frisian Islands and off Steenbanken, Schouwen-Duiveland in July 2005
3.
IJsselmeer
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Ijsselmeer, or IJsselmeer is a shallow artificial lake of 1100 km² in the central Netherlands bordering the provinces of Flevoland, North Holland and Friesland, with an average depth of 5 to 6 m. The IJsselmeer is the largest lake in Western Europe, the IJsselmeer is a freshwater lake fed through the Ketelmeer by the river IJssel, which gives it its name. It is mainly fed by water from the Rhine since the IJssel is a branch of it, the first two letters of the name are capitalized because IJ is a digraph in Dutch, possibly a ligature, so it is treated as a single letter for most purposes. The IJsselmeer was created in 1932 when a shallow inland bay, the Zuiderzee, was closed by a 32 km dam. This was part of a hydraulic engineering project known as the Zuiderzee Works. This former southern part of the IJsselmeer is now the hydrologically separate Markermeer, the IJsselmeer functions as a major fresh water reserve, serving as a source for agriculture and drinking water. It also offers a number of opportunities for recreational activities, the province of Flevoland was established in 1986 and consists of three polders reclaimed from the IJsselmeer. The narrow lake east of IJsselmeer is Lake Ketelmeer, the lake receives water from rivers that carry industrial pollutants from factories upstream. Those polluted sediments have settled to the bottom in a layer of contaminated sludge. To restore a normal environment, this material needs to be removed from the lakebed. In 2010 an artificial island called the IJsseloog was installed in Lake Ketelmeer and it is a repository for contaminated material dredged from the bottom of the lake. Once the repository is full, it will be capped and turned into a nature reserve, media related to IJsselmeer at Wikimedia Commons
4.
West Frisian language
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West Frisian, or simply Frisian is a West Germanic language spoken mostly in the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands, mostly by those of Frisian ancestry. It is the most widely spoken of the three Frisian languages, the name West Frisian is only used outside the Netherlands, to distinguish this language from the closely related Frisian languages of Saterland Frisian and North Frisian spoken in Germany. Most speakers of West Frisian live in the province of Friesland in the north of the Netherlands, Friesland has 643,000 inhabitants, of whom 94% can understand spoken Frisian, 74% can speak Frisian, 75% can read Frisian, and 27% can write it. For over half of the inhabitants of the province of Friesland, 55%, also, many Frisians have left their province in the last sixty years for more prosperous parts of the Netherlands. In addition, there is a Frisian diaspora abroad, with Friesland having sent, in relative terms, the largest concentrations of Frisian speakers outside the Netherlands are located in Canada, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. Apart from the use of Frisian as a first language, it is spoken as a second language by about 120,000 people in the province of Friesland. One part of Friesland, Stellingwerf in the south-east, does not speak Frisian, the least-used dialect of West Frisian is Skiermûntseagersk, the island dialect of Schiermonnikoog, which is actually on the verge of extinction, because it is spoken by no more than 50–100 people. The Amelansk dialect is spoken on the island Ameland and is the only Frisian variety that does not devoice final obstruants, Hindeloopen Frisian, the archaic Frisian dialect of the peninsular harbour town of Hindeloopen on the west coast, is still spoken by some 300 people at the most. Skylgersk and Aastersk are the dialects of the western and eastern parts of the island of Terschelling and have about 800 and 400 speakers respectively and they are separated from each other by the Dutch dialect of Midslands, which is spoken in the central part of Terschelling. Because of their insular nature these four less-used dialects are also those that have deviated the most from mainstream Frisian, in fact, three of the four widely used mainland dialects are so much alike that a non-Frisian could probably not make out any differences. The Noardhoeksk dialect is spoken in the eastern corner of the province. By far the two most widely spoken West Frisian dialects are Clay Frisian and Wood Frisian, both these names are derived from the Frisian landscape. In the western and north-western parts of the province, the region where Clay Frisian is spoken, the dialect spoken in the eastern area is thus called Wood Frisian. Although Klaaifrysk and Wâldfrysk are mutually very easily intelligible, there are, at least to native Frisian speakers and these include the pronunciation of the words my, dy, hy, sy, wy and by, and the diphthongs ei and aai. In the early Middle Ages the Frisian lands stretched from the area around Bruges, in what is now Belgium, to the river Weser, at that time, the Frisian language was spoken along the entire southern North Sea coast. Old Frisian bore a similarity to Old English. This similarity was reinforced in the late Middle Ages by the Ingvaeonic sound shift, which affected Frisian and English, both English and Frisian are marked by the suppression of the Germanic nasal in a word like us, soft or goose, see Ingvaeonic nasal spirant law. Also, when followed by some vowels the Germanic k developed into a ch sound, for example, the Frisian for cheese and church is tsiis and tsjerke, whereas in Dutch it is kaas and kerk
5.
Levee
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A levee, dike, dyke, embankment, floodbank or stopbank is an elongated naturally occurring ridge or artificially constructed fill or wall, which regulates water levels. It is usually earthen and often parallel to the course of a river in its floodplain or along low-lying coastlines, the word levee, from the French word levée, is used in American English. It originated in New Orleans a few years after the founding in 1718 and was later adopted by English speakers. The name derives from the trait of the ridges being raised higher than both the channel and the surrounding floodplains. The modern word dike or dyke most likely derives from the Dutch word dijk, the 126 kilometres long Westfriese Omringdijk was completed by 1250, and was formed by connecting existing older dikes. The Roman chronicler Tacitus even mentions that the rebellious Batavi pierced dikes to flood their land, the word dijk originally indicated both the trench and the bank. It is closely related to the English verb to dig, in Anglo-Saxon, the word dic already existed and was pronounced as dick in northern England and as ditch in the south. Similar to Dutch, the English origins of the lie in digging a trench. This practice has meant that the name may be given to either the excavation or the bank, thus Offas Dyke is a combined structure and Car Dyke is a trench though it once had raised banks as well. In the midlands and north of England, and in the United States, a dike is what a ditch is in the south, a property boundary marker or small drainage channel. Where it carries a stream, it may be called a dike as in Rippingale Running Dike. The Weir Dike is a dike in Bourne North Fen, near Twenty and alongside the River Glen. In the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads, a dyke may be a ditch or a narrow artificial channel off a river or broad for access or mooring, some longer dykes being named. In parts of Britain, particularly Scotland, a dyke may be a field wall, Levees can be mainly found along the sea, where dunes are not strong enough, along rivers for protection against high-floods, along lakes or along polders. Furthermore, levees have been built for the purpose of empoldering, the latter can be a controlled inundation by the military or a measure to prevent inundation of a larger area surrounded by levees. Levees have also built as field boundaries and as military defences. More on this type of levee can be found in the article on dry-stone walls, Levees can be permanent earthworks or emergency constructions built hastily in a flood emergency. When such a bank is added on top of an existing levee it is known as a cradge
6.
Causeway
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In modern usage, a causeway is a road or railway on top an embankment usually across a broad body of water or wetland. When first used, the word appeared in a such as causey way making clear its derivation from the earlier form causey. This word seems to have come from the source by two different routes. It derives ultimately, from the Latin for heel, calx, anciently, the construction was trodden down, one layer at a time, often by slaves or flocks of sheep. Today, this work is done by machines, the same technique would have been used for road embankments, raised river banks, sea banks and fortification earthworks. The second derivation route is simply the hard, trodden surface of a path, the name by this route came to be applied to a firmly-surfaced road. It is now little-used except in dialect and in the names of roads which were notable for their solidly-made surface. The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica states causey, a mound or dam, which is derived, through the Norman-French caucie, from the late Latin via calciata, a road stamped firm with the feet. The word is comparable in both meanings with the French chaussée, from a form of which it reached English by way of Norman French. The French adjective, chaussée, carries the meaning of having given a hardened surface. As a noun chaussée is used on the one hand for a metalled carriageway, other languages have a noun with similar dual meaning. The Welsh is relevant here, as it also has a verb, sarnu, a transport corridor that is carried instead on a series of arches, perhaps approaching a bridge, is a viaduct. In the U. S. a short stretch of viaduct is called an overpass, some low causeways across shore waters become inaccessible when covered at high tide. The modern embankment may be constructed within a cofferdam, two parallel steel sheet pile or concrete retaining walls, anchored to each other with steel cables or rods. This construction may also serve as a dyke that keeps two bodies of water apart, such as bodies with a different water level on each side, or with water on one side. This may also be the purpose of a structure, the road providing a hardened crest for the dike. It also provides access for maintenance as well perhaps, as a public service, notable causeways include those that connect Singapore and Malaysia, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia and Venice to the mainland, all of which carry roadways and railways. In the Netherlands there are a number of prominent dykes which also double as causeways, including the Afsluitdijk, Brouwersdam, in Louisiana, two very long bridges, called the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway, stretch across Lake Pontchartrain for almost 38 km, making them the worlds longest bridges
7.
Netherlands
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The Netherlands, also informally known as Holland is the main constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a densely populated country located in Western Europe with three territories in the Caribbean. The European part of the Netherlands borders Germany to the east, Belgium to the south, and the North Sea to the northwest, sharing borders with Belgium, the United Kingdom. The three largest cities in the Netherlands are Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, Amsterdam is the countrys capital, while The Hague holds the Dutch seat of parliament and government. The port of Rotterdam is the worlds largest port outside East-Asia, the name Holland is used informally to refer to the whole of the country of the Netherlands. Netherlands literally means lower countries, influenced by its low land and flat geography, most of the areas below sea level are artificial. Since the late 16th century, large areas have been reclaimed from the sea and lakes, with a population density of 412 people per km2 –507 if water is excluded – the Netherlands is classified as a very densely populated country. Only Bangladesh, South Korea, and Taiwan have both a population and higher population density. Nevertheless, the Netherlands is the worlds second-largest exporter of food and agricultural products and this is partly due to the fertility of the soil and the mild climate. In 2001, it became the worlds first country to legalise same-sex marriage, the Netherlands is a founding member of the EU, Eurozone, G-10, NATO, OECD and WTO, as well as being a part of the Schengen Area and the trilateral Benelux Union. The first four are situated in The Hague, as is the EUs criminal intelligence agency Europol and this has led to the city being dubbed the worlds legal capital. The country also ranks second highest in the worlds 2016 Press Freedom Index, the Netherlands has a market-based mixed economy, ranking 17th of 177 countries according to the Index of Economic Freedom. It had the thirteenth-highest per capita income in the world in 2013 according to the International Monetary Fund, in 2013, the United Nations World Happiness Report ranked the Netherlands as the seventh-happiest country in the world, reflecting its high quality of life. The Netherlands also ranks joint second highest in the Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index, the region called Low Countries and the country of the Netherlands have the same toponymy. Place names with Neder, Nieder, Nether and Nedre and Bas or Inferior are in use in all over Europe. They are sometimes used in a relation to a higher ground that consecutively is indicated as Upper, Boven, Oben. In the case of the Low Countries / the Netherlands the geographical location of the region has been more or less downstream. The geographical location of the region, however, changed over time tremendously
8.
Den Oever
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Den Oever is a village in the Dutch province of North Holland. It is a part of the municipality of Hollands Kroon, in 2001, the town of Den Oever had 2286 inhabitants. The built-up area of the town was 0.53 km², the eightsided wooden grain smock mill De Hoop is situated in the middle of the village with a wingspan of 17 metres. It dates back into the 17th century and has completely restored in the second half of the 20th century. Unusual with the mill is that it never has had a hoist mechanism, breezanddijk Kornwerderzand Den Oever Lighthouse Media related to Den Oever at Wikimedia Commons Mill description in Dutch with images on www. molendatabase. nl
9.
Wieringen
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Wieringen is part of the new municipality of Hollands Kroon, established in 2012 in the province of North Holland in the Netherlands. It is a municipality in this province, with its name appearing in Roman records of the late 9th. By draining, dikes and landfill from 1924 to 1932, the island was rejoined to the mainland, in the 21st century, the local governments proposed a project to restore the insular status of Wieringen by construction of a recreational lake to be called the Wieringerrandmeer. The project was cancelled in 2010 for financial reasons, the landscape of Wieringen is not all flat, it is characterised by dam ramparts of boulder clay, which were formed during the Saale Ice Age. The name Wieringen has nothing to do with wier, but this connection was made in former days. Probably the name came from Old Frisian wîr = height, the first known written references to Wieringen are as Wiron or pagus Wirense in Latin in a list of property owned by the monastery at Fulda, dated late 8th century or early 9th century AD. = I, Gebi, have transferred to the monastery of St. Bonifacius in the area Wieringen one mansion with all that goes with it, land with the serfs and dwellings with the serfs. Ego Gerwic de Fresia trado sancto Bonifacio ad Fuldense monasterium terram iuris mei iuxta fluvium Maresdeop et quicquid proprietatis habui sive in agris vel pratis, silvis, domibus vel mancipiis. Wieringen and Texel may have met as opposite banks of the Maresdeop, ego Geltrud tradidi ad monasterium sancti Bonifacii omnem proprietatem meam in agris, silvis et de pratis ad XX carradas feni, in loco nuncupato Wictulfingafurt in pago Wironi. Wictulfingafurt means the ford of the sons or people of a man called Wictulf, the places Wictulfingafurt and Brochenlar cannot now be found, and their sites are likeliest now under the sea, or under some polder which has been made since. = I, Hunbertus, have transferred to St and these gifts are all dated between 800AD and 820AD and include 5 manors. A possessions list of the St. Martins church in Utrecht, dated 948, lists a church domain with 12 farms at Alvitlo, both these places still exist and are in Wieringen. The amount of property in land in two lists composed an area larger than the modern island of Wieringen. In 1996 silver treasure was found in a pasture at the hamlet of Westerklief and it has been dated to the 9th century and is attributed to Vikings, who likely had an operating base there. 1.7 kilograms of silver coins and jewels, and small silver ingots and it now can be seen in the Rijksmuseum voor Oudheden in Leiden. Some years later smaller silver treasures from the period were found in this area. Wieringen became an island around 1200 as a result of storm floods that surrounded it with water. This status lasted for more than 700 years, the larger area was inhabited and controlled by Frisians, until the Dutch count Floris V made the Wieringers subject in 1284
10.
North Holland
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North Holland is a province in the northwest of the Netherlands. It is situated on the North Sea, north of South Holland and Utrecht, in 2015, it had a population of 2,762,163 and a total area of 2,670 km2. From the 9th to the 16th century, the area was a part of the County of Holland. During this period West Friesland was incorporated, in the 17th and 18th century, the area was part of the province of Holland. At that time, the distinction between the Noorderkwartier and the Zuiderkwartier became common, in 1840, the province of Holland was split into the two provinces of North Holland and South Holland. In 1855, the Haarlemmermeer was drained and turned into land, the capital and seat of the provincial government is Haarlem, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands capital city, is the provinces largest city. The Kings Commissioner of North Holland is Johan Remkes, there are 51 municipalities and three water boards in the province. For most of its history, the province of North Holland was an integral part of Holland. From the 9th century to the 16th century, Holland was a county ruled by the counts of Holland, during this period an area known as West Friesland was conquered and integrated into Holland. For centuries afterwards Holland would be officially called Holland and West Friesland, the people of West Friesland had a strong sense of identity as a region within Holland. From the 16th century to 1795, Holland was the wealthiest and most important province in the United Provinces in the Dutch Republic, as the richest and most powerful province, Holland dominated the union. During this period a distinction was made between the North Quarter and the South Quarter, areas that roughly correspond to the two modern provinces. The province of North Holland as it is today has its origins in the period of French rule from 1795 to 1813 and this was a time of bewildering changes to the Dutch system of provinces. In 1795 the old order was swept away and the Batavian Republic was established, in the Constitution enacted on 23 April 1798, the old borders were radically changed. The republic was reorganised into eight departments with roughly equal populations, Holland was split up into five departments named Texel, Amstel, Delf, Schelde en Maas, and Rijn. The first three of these lay within the borders of the old Holland, the two were made up of parts of different provinces. In 1801 the old borders were restored when the department of Holland was created and this reorganisation had been short-lived, but it gave birth to the concept of breaking up Holland and making it a less powerful province. This time the two departments were called Amstelland and Maasland and this also did not last long
11.
Friesland
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Friesland or Frisia is a province in the northwest of the Netherlands. It is situated west of Groningen, northwest of Drenthe and Overijssel, north of Flevoland, northeast of North Holland, in 2010, the province had a population of 646,000 and a total area of 5,749 km2. The capital and seat of the government is the city of Leeuwarden. Since 2017, Arno Brok is the Kings Commissioner in the province, a coalition of the Labour Party, the Christian Democratic Appeal, and the Frisian National Party forms the executive branch. The province is divided into 24 municipalities, the area of the province was once part of the ancient, larger region of Frisia. The official languages of Friesland are West Lauwers Frisian and Dutch, a proto-Frisian culture slowly began to emerge around 400–200 BC known for its artificial dwelling hills as a defence against the sea. The Roman claim on Frisia began in 12 BC with the campaign of Nero Claudius Drusus in Germania, after a series of costly battles against the Frisians, the Romans were suddenly sworn fealty. The de facto independence they later enjoyed as a Roman vassal shows that this might have been a mostly diplomatic decision based on the temporary favourable bargaining position. Together with other Germanic tribes such as the Salians and the Batavii they managed to keep the north of the Lower Rhine mostly free from Roman influence. The early eighth-century AD is known for the Frisian Kingdom, king Redbad, after incorporation into the Frankish empire, Friesland was divided into three parts. The westernmost part developed at the start of the second millennium into the County of Holland, while the remainder of Frisia had no feudal overlord and that ended when Charles V added Frisia to the Habsburg Netherlands as Lordship of Frisia. Under Napoleon, the department was named Frise, after Napoleon was defeated in 1813, the department became part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands as the province of Friesland. Friesland is the largest province of the Netherlands if one includes areas of water, in terms of land area only, the provinces highest point is at 45 metres above sea level, on the island of Vlieland. There are four parks, Schiermonnikoog, De Alde Feanen, Lauwersmeer. The ten urban areas in Friesland with the largest population are, The province is divided into 24 municipalities, the province of Friesland has an oceanic climate. In 2010, Friesland had a population of 646,305, the years 1880–1900 show slower population growth due to a farm crisis in which 20,000 Frisians emigrated to the United States of America. Since the late Middle Ages, Friesland has been renowned for the height of its inhabitants. Friesland is mainly an agricultural province, the black and white Frisian cattle, black and white Stabyhoun and the black Frisian horse originated here
12.
Sea level
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Mean sea level is an average level of the surface of one or more of Earths oceans from which heights such as elevations may be measured. A common and relatively straightforward mean sea-level standard is the midpoint between a low and mean high tide at a particular location. Sea levels can be affected by factors and are known to have varied greatly over geological time scales. The careful measurement of variations in MSL can offer insights into ongoing climate change, the term above sea level generally refers to above mean sea level. Precise determination of a sea level is a difficult problem because of the many factors that affect sea level. Sea level varies quite a lot on several scales of time and this is because the sea is in constant motion, affected by the tides, wind, atmospheric pressure, local gravitational differences, temperature, salinity and so forth. The easiest way this may be calculated is by selecting a location and calculating the mean sea level at that point, for example, a period of 19 years of hourly level observations may be averaged and used to determine the mean sea level at some measurement point. One measures the values of MSL in respect to the land, hence a change in MSL can result from a real change in sea level, or from a change in the height of the land on which the tide gauge operates. In the UK, the Ordnance Datum is the sea level measured at Newlyn in Cornwall between 1915 and 1921. Prior to 1921, the datum was MSL at the Victoria Dock, in Hong Kong, mPD is a surveying term meaning metres above Principal Datum and refers to height of 1. 230m below the average sea level. In France, the Marégraphe in Marseilles measures continuously the sea level since 1883 and it is used for a part of continental Europe and main part of Africa as official sea level. Elsewhere in Europe vertical elevation references are made to the Amsterdam Peil elevation, satellite altimeters have been making precise measurements of sea level since the launch of TOPEX/Poseidon in 1992. A joint mission of NASA and CNES, TOPEX/Poseidon was followed by Jason-1 in 2001, height above mean sea level is the elevation or altitude of an object, relative to the average sea level datum. It is also used in aviation, where some heights are recorded and reported with respect to sea level, and in the atmospheric sciences. An alternative is to base height measurements on an ellipsoid of the entire Earth, in aviation, the ellipsoid known as World Geodetic System 84 is increasingly used to define heights, however, differences up to 100 metres exist between this ellipsoid height and mean tidal height. The alternative is to use a vertical datum such as NAVD88. When referring to geographic features such as mountains on a topographic map, the elevation of a mountain denotes the highest point or summit and is typically illustrated as a small circle on a topographic map with the AMSL height shown in metres, feet or both. In the rare case that a location is below sea level, for one such case, see Amsterdam Airport Schiphol
13.
Zuiderzee Works
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The project involved the damming of the Zuiderzee, a large, shallow inlet of the North Sea, and the reclamation of land in the newly enclosed water using polders. Its main purposes are to improve protection and create additional land for agriculture. The American Society of Civil Engineers declared these works, together with the Delta Works in the South-West of the Netherlands, as among the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. The Netherlands has low flat topography, with half its area less than one metre above sea level. The seventeenth century saw proposals to tame and enclose the Zuiderzee. Plans were developed during the half of the nineteenth century to protect areas from the force of the open sea. Cornelis Lely was an ardent supporter, an engineer and later government minister and his 1891 plan was the basis for the development of what were to become the Zuiderzee Works. Two major lanes of water were defined for shipping and drainage. The initial body of water affected by the project was 3,500 square kilometres, opposition came from fishermen along the Zuiderzee who would lose their livelihood, and from others in coastal areas along the more northerly Wadden Sea. They feared higher water levels as a result of the closure, other critics doubted whether the project was feasible financially. When Lely became Minister of Transport and Public Works in 1913, he used his position to promote the Zuiderzee Works, the government started developing official plans to enclose the Zuiderzee. On January 13 and 14,1916 the dikes at several places along the Zuiderzee broke under the stress of a storm. This flooding provided the impetus to implement the existing plans to tame the Zuiderzee. In addition, a food shortage during the other stresses of World War I added to widespread support for the project. On June 14,1918 the Zuiderzee Act was passed, the Dienst der Zuiderzeewerken, the government body responsible for overseeing the construction and initial management, was set up in May 1919. It decided against building the dam first, proceeding to construct a smaller dam. This was the first step in rejoining the island of Wieringen to the North Holland mainland, the dike, with a length of 2.5 km, was built between 1920 and 1924. As with dike building, polder construction was tested on a scale at the experimental polder at Andijk
14.
Zuiderzee
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Its name means southern sea in Dutch, indicating that the name originates in Friesland, to the north of the Zuiderzee. In the 20th century the majority of the Zuiderzee was closed off from the North Sea by the construction of the Afsluitdijk and this land eventually became the province of Flevoland, with a population of nearly 400,000. In classical times there was already a body of water in this location and it was much smaller than its later forms and its connection to the main sea was much narrower, it may have been a complex of lakes and marshes and channels, rather than one lake. Over time these lakes gradually eroded their soft peat shores and spread, some part of this area of water was later called the Vlie, it probably flowed into the sea through what is now the Vliestroom channel between the islands of Vlieland and Terschelling. The Marsdiep was once a river which may have been a distributary of the Vlie, during the early Middle Ages this began to change as rising sea levels and storms started to eat away at the coastal areas which consisted mainly of peatlands. The disaster marked the rise of Amsterdam on the end of the bay. The even more massive St. Lucias flood occurred 14 December 1287, the name Zuiderzee came into general usage around this period. For example, on 18 November 1421, a seawall at the Zuiderzee dike broke and this was the Second St. Elizabeths flood. The Netherlands was part of the First French Empire between 1810 and 1813, a département was formed in 1811 and named as Zuyderzée after the Zuiderzee, of which the territory roughly corresponded to the present provinces of North Holland and Utrecht. In 1928, the 6-meter and 8-meter sailing events for the Amsterdam Summer Olympics were held on the Zuiderzee. These towns traded at first with ports on the Baltic Sea, in England, and in the Hanseatic League, when that lucrative trade diminished, most of the towns fell back on fishing and some industry until the 20th century when tourism became the major source of income. Contained within the Zuiderzee were five islands, the remains of what were once larger islands, peninsulas connected to the mainland, or in the case of Pampus. These were Wieringen, Urk, Schokland, Pampus, and Marken, the inhabitants of these islands also subsisted mainly on fishing and related industries and still do in the case of Urk and Wieringen. All of these islands, except for Pampus, are now part of the mainland or connected to it, the construction in the early 20th century of a large enclosing dam tamed the Zuiderzee. The creation of this dam was a response to the flood of January 1916, plans for closing the Zuiderzee had been made over thirty years earlier but had not yet passed in parliament. With the completion of the Afsluitdijk in 1932, the Zuiderzee became the IJsselmeer and these areas, known as polders, were respectively the Wieringermeer, the Noordoostpolder, and Flevoland. This enormous project under the direction of Cornelis Lely, called the Zuiderzee Works, ran from 1919 to 1986, Zuiderzee Museum, dedicated to the history and culture of the former Zuiderzee Zuiderzee Cycle Route, long-distance cycle route around the former Zuiderzee Pathe newsreel of flooding,1916
15.
North Sea
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The North Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean located between Great Britain, Scandinavia, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, and France. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the ocean through the English Channel in the south and it is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of around 570,000 square kilometres. The North Sea has long been the site of important European shipping lanes as well as a major fishery, the North Sea was the centre of the Vikings rise. Subsequently, the Hanseatic League, the Netherlands, and the British each sought to dominate the North Sea and thus the access to the markets, as Germanys only outlet to the ocean, the North Sea continued to be strategically important through both World Wars. The coast of the North Sea presents a diversity of geological and geographical features, in the north, deep fjords and sheer cliffs mark the Norwegian and Scottish coastlines, whereas in the south it consists primarily of sandy beaches and wide mudflats. Due to the population, heavy industrialization, and intense use of the sea and area surrounding it. In the southwest, beyond the Straits of Dover, the North Sea becomes the English Channel connecting to the Atlantic Ocean, in the east, it connects to the Baltic Sea via the Skagerrak and Kattegat, narrow straits that separate Denmark from Norway and Sweden respectively. In the north it is bordered by the Shetland Islands, and connects with the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea is more than 970 kilometres long and 580 kilometres wide, with an area of 570,000 square kilometres and a volume of 54,000 cubic kilometres. Around the edges of the North Sea are sizeable islands and archipelagos, including Shetland, Orkney, the North Sea receives freshwater from a number of European continental watersheds, as well as the British Isles. A large part of the European drainage basin empties into the North Sea including water from the Baltic Sea, the largest and most important rivers flowing into the North Sea are the Elbe and the Rhine – Meuse watershed. Around 185 million people live in the catchment area of the rivers discharging into the North Sea encompassing some highly industrialized areas, for the most part, the sea lies on the European continental shelf with a mean depth of 90 metres. The only exception is the Norwegian trench, which extends parallel to the Norwegian shoreline from Oslo to a north of Bergen. It is between 20 and 30 kilometres wide and has a depth of 725 metres. The Dogger Bank, a vast moraine, or accumulation of unconsolidated glacial debris and this feature has produced the finest fishing location of the North Sea. The Long Forties and the Broad Fourteens are large areas with uniform depth in fathoms. These great banks and others make the North Sea particularly hazardous to navigate, the Devils Hole lies 200 miles east of Dundee, Scotland. The feature is a series of trenches between 20 and 30 kilometres long,1 and 2 kilometres wide and up to 230 metres deep. Other areas which are less deep are Cleaver Bank, Fisher Bank, the International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the North Sea as follows, On the Southwest
16.
Speed limit
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Road speed limits are used in most countries to set the maximum speed at which road vehicles may legally travel on particular stretches of road. Speed limits may be variable and in some places speeds are unlimited, Speed limits are normally indicated on a traffic sign. Speed limits are set by the legislative bodies of nations or provincial governments. The first maximum speed limit was the 10 mph limit introduced in the United Kingdom in 1861, the highest posted speed limit in the world is 140 km/h, which applies to some roads in Poland and Bulgaria, similarly Texas posts 85 mph on one 40-mile long toll road. However, some roads have no speed limit for certain classes of vehicles, best known are Germanys less congested Autobahns, where automobile drivers have no mandated maximum speed. Measurements from the German state of Brandenburg in 2006 showed average speeds of 142 km/h on a 6-lane section of autobahn in free-flowing conditions, rural roads on the Isle of Man and the Indian states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, and Telangana, also lack speed limits. Speed limits are set to attempt to cap road traffic speed. It is often done with an intention to improve traffic safety. Speed limits may also be set in an attempt to reduce the impact of road traffic. Some cities have reduced limits to as little as 30 km/h for both safety and efficiency reasons, however, it has also been shown that in some circumstances changing a speed limit has little effect on the average speed of cars. In situations where the road speed is considered too high by governments. For some classes of vehicle, speed limiters may be mandated to enforce compliance, since their introduction, speed limits have been opposed by some motoring advocacy groups. The United Kingdom Stage Carriage Act 1832 first introduced the offense of endangering the safety of a passenger or person by furious driving. The Locomotives on Highways Act 1896, which raised the limit to 14 mph is celebrated to this day by the annual London to Brighton Veteran Car Run. The first person to be convicted of speeding is believed to be Walter Arnold of East Peckham, Kent and he was fined 1 shilling plus costs. In Australia, during the early 20th century, there were reported for furious driving offences. One conviction in 1905 cited furiously driving 20 mph when passing a tram traveling at half that speed. Most jurisdictions use the metric speed unit of kilometers per hour for speed limits, while some, primarily the United States, Australia followed the United Kingdom system before changing to the metric system in the 1970s
17.
Boulder clay
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Boulder clay, in geology, is a deposit of clay, often full of boulders, which is formed out of the ground moraine material of glaciers and ice-sheets wherever they are found. It was the deposit of the Glacial Period in northern Europe. Boulder clay is known as till. Boulder clay is distinguished from other clay in that it contains more boulders, the clay is scraped from the top layer of older rock by the movement of a glacier or ice sheet. An ice sheet pushes rocks, boulders and everything else in its path, which in turn wears the rock into silt-like grain, much boulder clay is of a bluish-grey until exposed to weather, which transforms it to a brown colour. Boulder clay is classed with a group of poorly sorted materials and it is usually a stiff, tough clay devoid of stratification, though some varieties are distinctly laminated. Occasionally, within the clay, there are irregular lenticular masses of more or less stratified sand. The boulders are held within the clay in an irregular manner, usually they are somewhat oblong, and often they possess a flat side or sole, they may be angular, sub-angular, or well-rounded. If they are hard rocks, they frequently bear grooves and scratches caused by contact with other rocks while held firmly in the glacier ice. They may consist of any hard rock, with the exception of foraminifera, which have been found in the boulder clay of widely separated regions, fossils are practically unknown. In some maritime districts, marine shells have been incorporated with the clay, a classic example of boulder clay can be seen in England at the rapidly eroding cliffs of Hornsea, situated along the Holderness coast in East Yorkshire
18.
Gabion
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A gabion is a cage, cylinder, or box filled with rocks, concrete, or sometimes sand and soil for use in civil engineering, road building, military applications and landscaping. For erosion control, caged riprap is used, for dams or in foundation construction, cylindrical metal structures are used. In a military context, earth- or sand-filled gabions are used to protect sappers, infantry, leonardo da Vinci designed a type of gabion called a Corbeille Leonard for the foundations of the San Marco Castle in Milan. Other uses include retaining walls, noise barriers, temporary walls, silt filtration from runoff, for small or temporary/permanent dams, river training. They may be used to direct the force of a flow of water around a vulnerable structure. Gabions are also used as fish screens on small streams, a gabion wall is a retaining wall made of stacked stone-filled gabions tied together with wire. Gabion walls are usually battered, or stepped back with the slope, gabion baskets have some advantages over loose riprap because of their modularity and ability to be stacked in various shapes. Gabions have advantages over more rigid structures, because they can conform to subsidence, dissipate energy from flowing water and resist being washed away and their strength and effectiveness may increase with time in some cases, as silt and vegetation fill the interstitial voids and reinforce the structure. They are sometimes used to prevent falling stones from a cut or cliff endangering traffic on a thoroughfare, the life expectancy of gabions depends on the lifespan of the wire, not on the contents of the basket. The structure will fail when the wire fails, galvanized steel wire is most common, but PVC-coated and stainless steel wire are also used. PVC-coated galvanized gabions have been estimated to survive for 60 years, Some gabion manufacturers guarantee a structural consistency of 50 years. In the United States, gabion use within streams first began with projects completed from 1957 to 1965 on North River, Virginia and Zealand River, more than 150 grade-control structures, bank revetments and channel deflectors were constructed on the two U. S. Forest Service sites. Eventually, a portion of the in-stream structures failed due to undermining. In particular, corrosion and abrasion of wires by bedload movement compromised the structures, other gabions were toppled into channels as trees grew and enlarged on top of gabion revetments, leveraging them toward the river channels. Gabions have also used in building, as in the Dominus Winery in the Napa Valley, California by architects Herzog & de Meuron. There are various designs of gabions to meet particular functional requirements. For example, Bastion, a gabion lined internally with a membrane, typically of nonwoven geotextile to permit use of a granular soil fill, mattress, a form of gabion with relatively small height relative to the lateral dimensions, commonly very wide. For protecting surfaces from wave erosion and similar attack, rather than building or supporting high structures, trapion, a form of gabion with a trapezoidal cross section, designed for stacking to give a face that is sloping rather than stepped
19.
Till
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Till or glacial till is unsorted glacial sediment. Till is derived from the erosion and entrainment of material by the ice of a glacier. It is deposited some distance down-ice to form terminal, lateral, medial, till is classified into primary deposits, laid down directly by glaciers, and secondary deposits, reworked by fluvial transport and other processes. Glacial drift is the graded and extremely heterogeneous sediment of a glacier. Its content may vary from clays to mixtures of clay, sand, gravel and this material is mostly derived from the subglacial erosion and entrainment by the moving ice of the glaciers of previously available unconsolidated sediments. Bedrock can also be eroded through the action of glacial plucking and abrasion, eventually, the sedimentary assemblage forming this bed will be abandoned some distance down-ice from its various sources. This is the process of glacial till deposition, when this deposition occurs at the base of the moving ice of a glacier, the sediment is called lodgement till. Rarely, eroded unconsolidated sediments can be preserved in the till along with their original sedimentary structures, till is deposited at the terminal moraine, along the lateral and medial moraines and in the ground moraine of a glacier. Prospectors use trace minerals in tills as clues to follow the glacier upstream to find kimberlite diamond deposits, in cases where till has been indurated or lithified by subsequent burial into solid rock, it is known as the sedimentary rock tillite. Matching beds of ancient tillites on opposite sides of the south Atlantic Ocean provided early evidence for continental drift, the same tillites also provide some support to the Precambrian Snowball Earth glaciation event hypothesis. There are various types of classifying tills, primary deposits – laid down directly by glacier action secondary deposits – reworked by fluvial transport, erosion, traditionally a further set of divisions has been made to primary deposits, based upon the method of deposition. Lodgement tills – sediment which has been deposited by plastering of glacial debris from a sliding glacier bed, deformation tills – Sediment which has been disaggregated and homogenised by shearing in the sub glacial deformed layer. Melt out tills – Released by melting of stagnant or slowly moving debris-rich glacier ice, split up into sub glacial melt out till and supraglacial melt-out till. Sublimation till – similar to melt out till, except the ice is lost through sublimation rather than melt, often occurs only in extremely cold and arid conditions, mainly in Antarctica. Van der Meer et al.2003 have suggested that these classifications are outdated and should instead be replaced with only one classification
20.
Dredging
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Dredging is an excavation activity usually carried out underwater, in shallow seas or freshwater areas with the purpose of gathering up bottom sediments and disposing of them at a different location. This technique is used to keep waterways navigable. It is also used as a way to replenish sand on some public beaches, fishing dredges are used as a technique for catching certain species of edible clams and crabs. Capital, dredging carried out to create a new harbor, berth or waterway, preparatory, work and excavation for future bridges, piers or docks/wharves, often connected with foundation work. This is often carried out with a trailing suction hopper dredge, most dredging is for this purpose, and it may also be done to maintain the holding capacity of reservoirs or lakes. Land reclamation, dredging to mine sand, clay or rock from the seabed and this is typically performed by a cutter-suction dredge or trailing suction hopper dredge. The material may also be used for flood or erosion control, beach nourishment, mining sand offshore and placing on a beach to replace sand eroded by storms or wave action. This is done to enhance the recreational and protective function of the beaches and this is typically performed by a cutter-suction dredge or trailing suction hopper dredge. Harvesting materials, dredging sediment for elements like gold, diamonds or other valuable trace substances, seabed mining, a possible future use, recovering natural metal ore nodules from the seas abyssal plains. Construction materials, dredging sand and gravels from offshore licensed areas for use in construction industry, very specialist industry focused in NW Europe using specialized trailing suction hopper dredgers self discharging dry cargo ashore. Anti-eutrophication, Dredging is an option for the remediation of eutrophied water bodies. Contaminant remediation, to areas affected by chemical spills, storm water surges. Disposal becomes a large factor in these operations. Removing trash and debris, often done in combination with maintenance dredging, flood prevention, this can help to increase channel depth and therefore increase a channels capacity for carrying water. This tradition has now more or less obsolete and the tools used to do this have also changed significantly. Oyster dredging or harvesting, in Louisiana and other states with salt water estuaries that can sustain bottom oyster beds. A heavy metal rectangular scoop device is towed astern of a boat with a chain bridle attached to a cable. The device is periodically hauled aboard and the oysters in it are sorted and bagged for shipment to a processing facility
21.
Kornwerderzand
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Kornwerderzand is a settlement on the Afsluitdijk, a major dam in the Netherlands that links Friesland with North Holland. Kornwerderzand is located approximately 4 kilometers from the coast of Friesland, the settlement has a population of 22. It is part of the municipality of Wonseradeel, a second complex of sluices and locks is located at the other side of the Afsluitdijk, near Den Oever. The Afsluitdijk provides a link between the provinces of Friesland and North Holland. From 1931 onwards, fortifications consisting of seventeen casemates and three bunkers were constructed, the position was manned with approximately 220 troops in 1939. During the German invasion of the Netherlands in World War II, on May 13 and May 14,1940, the fortifications were attacked by the German first Cavalry Division, while the Luftwaffe attacked supporting Dutch naval units. The German troops, initially lacking support by artillery, were unable to take the position. The fortifications also withstood attacks by dive bombers, the next day the Dutch military in the Netherlands surrendered, and the battle ended with the surrender of the position. In 1943, the occupying German military improved the defenses by building three additional bunkers, nowadays, some of the fortifications can be visited as part of the Kazemattenmuseum. Breezanddijk Kazemattenmuseum - The museum located in the fortifications Pictures of the fortifications
22.
Breezanddijk
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Breezanddijk is a small community that lies near the midpoint of the Afsluitdijk, part of the A7 motorway, in the Netherlands. It lies on an artificial island which was created during the construction of the dam. The hamlet lies between Den Oever and Kornwerderzand, until 2011 it was part of the former municipality of Wûnseradiel, merged with the other 4 to form the new Súdwest-Fryslân. The construction of the Afsluitdijk was started at four points, on sides of the mainland and on two specially made construction-islands along the line of the future dyke. There are about 40-50 buildings, most of which are bunkhouses that were built for the workers employed during the construction of the Afsluitdijk, today, it has a population of only four and its sole commercial establishment is a Texaco gas station for travelers upon the dyke. Lauwerszee Works Media related to Breezanddijk at Wikimedia Commons
23.
Willow
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Most species are known as willow, but some narrow-leaved shrub species are called osier, and some broader-leaved species are referred to as sallow. Some willows are low-growing or creeping shrubs, for example, the dwarf willow rarely exceeds 6 cm in height, though it spreads widely across the ground. Willows all have abundant watery bark sap, which is charged with salicylic acid, soft, usually pliant, tough wood, slender branches. The roots are remarkable for their toughness, size, and tenacity to life, the leaves are typically elongated, but may also be round to oval, frequently with serrated edges. Most species are deciduous, semievergreen willows with coriaceous leaves are rare, e. g. Salix micans, all the buds are lateral, no absolutely terminal bud is ever formed. The buds are covered by a single scale, usually, the bud scale is fused into a cap-like shape, but in some species it wraps around and the edges overlap. The leaves are simple, feather-veined, and typically linear-lanceolate, usually they are serrate, rounded at base, acute or acuminate. The leaf petioles are short, the often very conspicuous, resembling tiny, round leaves. On some species, however, they are small, inconspicuous, in color, the leaves show a great variety of greens, ranging from yellowish to bluish. Willows are dioecious, with male and female flowers appearing as catkins on separate plants and this scale is square, entire, and very hairy. The anthers are rose-colored in the bud, but orange or purple after the flower opens, they are two-celled, the filaments are threadlike, usually pale brown, and often bald. The ovary is one-celled, the style two-lobed, and the ovules numerous, almost all willows take root very readily from cuttings or where broken branches lie on the ground. The few exceptions include the willow and peachleaf willow. One famous example of such growth from cuttings involves the poet Alexander Pope and this twig was planted and thrived, and legend has it that all of Englands weeping willows are descended from this first one. Willows are often planted on the borders of streams so their interlacing roots may protect the bank against the action of the water, frequently, the roots are much larger than the stem which grows from them. Willows are very cross-compatible, and numerous hybrids occur, both naturally and in cultivation, a well-known ornamental example is the weeping willow, which is a hybrid of Peking willow from China and white willow from Europe. The hybrid cultivar Boydii has gained the Royal Horticultural Societys Award of Garden Merit, Willows are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species, such as the mourning cloak butterfly. Ants, such as ants, are common on willows inhabited by aphids, coming to collect aphid honeydew
24.
Hendrik Lorentz
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Hendrik Antoon Lorentz was a Dutch physicist who shared the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physics with Pieter Zeeman for the discovery and theoretical explanation of the Zeeman effect. He also derived the equations which formed the basis of the special relativity theory of Albert Einstein. For this he received honours and distinctions during his life. Hendrik Lorentz was born in Arnhem, Gelderland, the son of Gerrit Frederik Lorentz, a well-off nurseryman, in 1862, after his mothers death, his father married Luberta Hupkes. Despite being raised as a Protestant, he was a freethinker in religious matters, from 1866 to 1869 he attended the Hogere Burger School in Arnhem, a new type of public high school recently established by Johan Rudolph Thorbecke. His results in school were exemplary, not only did he excel in the sciences and mathematics, but also in English, French. In 1870 he passed the exams in languages which were then required for admission to University. After earning a degree, he returned to Arnhem in 1871 to teach night school classes in mathematics. On 17 November 1877, only 24 years of age, Hendrik Antoon Lorentz was appointed to the established chair in theoretical physics at the University of Leiden. The position had initially offered to Johan van der Waals. On 25 January 1878 Lorentz delivered his lecture on De moleculaire theoriën in de natuurkunde. In 1881 he became member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts, during the first twenty years in Leiden, Lorentz was primarily interested in the theory of electromagnetism to explain the relationship of electricity, magnetism, and light. After that, he extended his research to a wider area while still focusing on theoretical physics. Lorentz made significant contributions to fields ranging from hydrodynamics to general relativity and his most important contributions were in the area of electromagnetism, the electron theory, and relativity. Lorentz theorized that atoms might consist of charged particles and suggested that the oscillations of charged particles were the source of light. When a colleague and former student of Lorentzs, Pieter Zeeman, discovered the Zeeman effect in 1896, the experimental and theoretical work was honored with the Nobel prize in physics in 1902. Lorentz name is now associated with the Lorentz-Lorenz formula, the Lorentz force, the Lorentzian distribution, in 1892 and 1895 Lorentz worked on describing electromagnetic phenomena in reference frames that move relative to the luminiferous aether. He discovered that the transition from one to another reference frame could be simplified by using a new variable which he called local time
25.
A7 motorway (Netherlands)
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The A7 motorway is a motorway in the Netherlands connecting Zaandam, via the Afsluitdijk, Sneek and Groningen to the German border near Bad Nieuweschans. The entire road is part of the European route E22, with exception of the first kilometre, with a length of 236 km it is the longest motorway in the Netherlands. Both of the sections are denoted as N7 to distinguish those parts from the motorway. The A7 together with the N7 is called the Rijksweg 7, from March 2011, on a section of the A7 motorway, motorists were allowed to drive at 130 km/h, opposed to the then national speed limit of 120 km/h. This was a government test to investigate if driving at higher speeds have an effect on the environment. The test resulted positively, and the speed limit was raised to 130 km/h in October 2012. The A7 runs across a part of Dutch engineering, the Afsluitdijk. This dam was created to protect the countrys long interior coastline from floods by creating a large freshwater lake. Its midpoint is near the village of Breezanddijk, a naviduct and new locks was costed at €200–450 million, depending on the size of locks and size of highway. A naviduct would give waiting time annualised benefits €13 million to road traffic, cost–benefit analysis of all potential solutions were considered, and a naviduct could be built to replace the locks when they reach the end of their useful life in 2050. Media related to Rijksweg 7 at Wikimedia Commons
26.
European route E22
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The European route E22 is one of the longest European routes. It has a length of about 5,320 km, many of the E-roads have been extended into Asia since the year 2000, the E22 was extended on 24 June 2002. The best alternative is Kingston upon Hull–Rotterdam, the E22 would then use the planned tunnel under the Elbe at Drochtersen. Trelleborg - Malmö - Lund - Kristianstad - Sölvesborg - Karlshamn - Karlskrona - Kalmar - Norrköping - In Sweden, there is currently no ferry across the Baltic Sea between Norrköping and Ventspils. The best ferry alternative is from Nynäshamn to Ventspils, the line is run by Scandlines. Google Maps shows the E22 to use the ferry, but that is wrong, both routes are visible in Google Streetview. A much used shortcut is Izhevsk - Votkinsk - Perm, between Perm and Ishim, the E22 follows the Trans-Siberian Railway. Unece, Route of E22 E22 route near Jūrmala, Latvia
27.
Motorway
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A controlled-access highway is a type of highway which has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow and ingress/egress regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway, other similar terms include Interstate and parkway. Some of which may be limited-access highways, although this term can refer to a class of highway with somewhat less isolation from other traffic. In countries following Vienna convention, the motorway qualification implies they are forbidden for walking or parking, a controlled-access highway provides an unhindered flow of traffic, with no traffic signals, intersections or property access. They are free of any at-grade crossings with roads, railways, or pedestrian paths. Entrances and exits to the highway are provided at interchanges by slip roads, on the controlled-access highway, opposing directions of travel are generally separated by a median strip or central reservation containing a traffic barrier or grass. Elimination of conflicts with other directions of traffic dramatically improves safety and capacity, controlled-access highways evolved during the first half of the 20th century. Italy opened its first autostrada in 1924 connecting Milan to Varese, Germany began to build its first 30-kilometre autobahn controlled-access highway without speed limits in 1932 between Cologne and Bonn. It then rapidly constructed a system of such roads in anticipation of their use in the Second World War. The first North American freeways opened in the New York City area in the 1920s, Britain, heavily influenced by the railways, did not build its first motorway, the Preston By-pass, until 1958. Most technologically advanced nations feature a network of freeways or motorways to provide high-capacity urban travel, or high-speed rural travel. Many have a national-level or even international-level system of route numbering, exit is marked with another symbol. The definitions of motorway from the OECD and PIARC are almost identical, british Standards Motorway, Limited-access dual carriageway road, not crossed on the same level by other traffic lanes, for the exclusive use of certain classes of motor vehicle. ITE Freeway, A divided major roadway with full control of access and this definition applies to toll as well as toll-free roads. Freeway A, This designates roadways with greater complexity and high traffic volumes. Usually this type of freeway will be found in areas in or near the central core. Freeway B, This designates all other divided roadways with full control of access where lighting is needed, principal arterials may cross through urban areas, serving suburban movements. The traffic is characterized by high speeds and full or partial access control, other roads leading to a principal arterial are connected to it through side collector roads
28.
Willem Marinus Dudok
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Willem Marinus Dudok was a Dutch modernist architect. He became City Architect for the town of Hilversum in 1928 where he was best known for the brick Hilversum Town Hall, not only did he design the building, but also the interior including the carpets, furniture and even the mayors meeting hammer. He also designed and built about 75 houses, public buildings, Dudok initially chose to pursue a military career. At the military academy of Breda he studied engineering and was allowed to assist in designing military buildings. Influenced by other Dutch architects, such as Berlage, he rapidly proved able to adapt his own ideas and he was appointed Assistant Director of Public Works in Leiden in 1913 and Director of Public Works in Hilversum in 1915. He was appointed Hilversums Municipal Architect in 1928, the same year he was assigned the task of expanding the city, which involved designing housing estates, schools, swimming pools and parks and gardens. The City Hall is regarded as his masterpiece and manages to merge the requirements of being both a symbol of the city and an efficient administrative building and it is indicative of the garden-city character of Hilversum. Indeed, Dudok was clearly influenced by Ebenezer Howard and Raymond Unwin, Dudok continued to produce progressive, Dutch modernist structures in Hilversum for decades, through the 1960s, and had international influence. Amongst school designers in the Netherlands, his schools in Hilversum became particularly celebrated, Dudok received the RIBA Gold Medal in 1935 and the AIA Gold Medal in 1955. He also designed buildings in Paris, the Collège néerlandais in the Cité Universitaire, a centre in Baghdad. One of the buildings he designed in Rotterdam now houses a cafe-restaurant named after him and he drew up plans for the rebuilding of The Hague after WW2. This involved a new district for 150,000 people in the southwest of the city and he died, aged 89, in Hilversum
29.
Great Depression
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The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression that took place during the 1930s. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, in most countries it started in 1929 and it was the longest, deepest, and most widespread depression of the 20th century. In the 21st century, the Great Depression is commonly used as an example of how far the economy can decline. The depression originated in the United States, after a fall in stock prices that began around September 4,1929. Between 1929 and 1932, worldwide GDP fell by an estimated 15%, by comparison, worldwide GDP fell by less than 1% from 2008 to 2009 during the Great Recession. Some economies started to recover by the mid-1930s, however, in many countries, the negative effects of the Great Depression lasted until the beginning of World War II. The Great Depression had devastating effects in both rich and poor. Personal income, tax revenue, profits and prices dropped, while international trade plunged by more than 50%, unemployment in the U. S. rose to 25% and in some countries rose as high as 33%. Cities all around the world were hit hard, especially dependent on heavy industry. Construction was virtually halted in many countries, farming communities and rural areas suffered as crop prices fell by about 60%. Facing plummeting demand with few sources of jobs, areas dependent on primary sector industries such as mining and logging suffered the most. Even after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 optimism persisted for some time, john D. Rockefeller said These are days when many are discouraged. In the 93 years of my life, depressions have come, prosperity has always returned and will again. The stock market turned upward in early 1930, returning to early 1929 levels by April and this was still almost 30% below the peak of September 1929. Together, government and business spent more in the first half of 1930 than in the period of the previous year. On the other hand, consumers, many of whom had suffered losses in the stock market the previous year. In addition, beginning in the mid-1930s, a severe drought ravaged the agricultural heartland of the U. S, by mid-1930, interest rates had dropped to low levels, but expected deflation and the continuing reluctance of people to borrow meant that consumer spending and investment were depressed. By May 1930, automobile sales had declined to below the levels of 1928, prices in general began to decline, although wages held steady in 1930
30.
Lock (water navigation)
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A lock is a device used for raising and lowering boats, ships and other watercraft between stretches of water of different levels on river and canal waterways. Locks are used to make a more easily navigable, or to allow a canal to cross land that is not level. Later canals used more and larger locks to allow a direct route to be taken. Since 2016 the largest lock worldwide is the Kieldrecht Lock in the Port of Antwerp, a pound lock is a type of lock that is used almost exclusively nowadays on canals and rivers. A pound lock has a chamber with gates at both ends that control the level of water in the pound, in contrast, an earlier design with a single gate was known as a flash lock. Pound locks were first used in medieval China during the Song Dynasty, having been pioneered by the government official and engineer Qiao Weiyue in 984. The gates were hanging gates, when they were closed the water accumulated like a tide until the level was reached. The water level could differ by 4 feet or 5 feet at each lock, in medieval Europe a sort of pound lock was built in 1373 at Vreeswijk, Netherlands. This pound lock serviced many ships at once in a large basin, yet the first true pound lock was built in 1396 at Damme near Bruges, Belgium. A famous civil engineer of pound locks in Europe was the Italian Bertola da Novate, who constructed 18 of them on the Naviglio di Bereguardo between the years 1452 and 1458. When a stretch of river is navigable, a lock is sometimes required to bypass an obstruction such as a rapid, dam. In large scale river navigation improvements, weirs and locks are used together, a river improved by these means is often called a Waterway or River Navigation. Sometimes a river is made entirely non-tidal by constructing a sea lock directly into the estuary, in more advanced river navigations, more locks are required. Where a longer cut bypasses a stretch of river, the upstream end of the cut will often be protected by a flood lock. The longer the cut, the greater the difference in level between start and end of the cut, so that a very long cut will need additional locks along its length. At this point, the cut is, in effect, a canal, Early completely artificial canals, across fairly flat countryside, would get round a small hill or depression by simply detouring around it. However, locks continued to be built to supplement these solutions, all pound locks have three elements, A watertight chamber connecting the upper and lower canals, and large enough to enclose one or more boats. The position of the chamber is fixed, but its level can vary
31.
Sluice
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A sluice is a water channel controlled at its head by a gate. A mill race, leet, flume, penstock or lade is a sluice channelling water toward a water mill, the terms sluice, sluice gate, knife gate, and slide gate are used interchangeably in the water and wastewater control industry. A sluice gate is traditionally a wood or metal barrier sliding in grooves that are set in the sides of the waterway, Sluice gates commonly control water levels and flow rates in rivers and canals. They are also used in treatment plants and to recover minerals in mining operations. Sluice gate refers to a gate allowing water to flow under it. When a sluice is lowered, water may spill over the top, usually, a mechanism drives the sluice up or down. This may be a simple, hand-operated, chain pulled/lowered, worm drive or rack-and-pinion drive, flap sluice gate A fully automatic type, controlled by the pressure head across it, operation is similar to that of a check valve. It is a gate hinged at the top, when pressure is from one side, the gate is kept closed, a pressure from the other side opens the sluice when a threshold pressure is surpassed. Vertical rising sluice gate A plate sliding in the vertical direction, radial sluice gate A structure, where a small part of a cylindrical surface serves as the gate, supported by radial constructions going through the cylinders radius. On occasion, a counterweight is provided, rising sector sluice gate Also a part of a cylindrical surface, which rests at the bottom of the channel and rises by rotating around its centre. Needle sluice A sluice formed by a number of thin needles held against a solid frame through water pressure as in a needle dam. The gates of a Guillotine lock work in a way similar to a sluice gate, in the mountains of the United States, sluices transported logs from steep hillsides to downslope sawmill ponds or yarding areas. Nineteenth-century logging was traditionally a winter activity for men who spent summers working on farms, where there were freezing nights, water might be applied to logging sluices every night so a fresh coating of slippery ice would reduce friction of logs placed in the sluice the following morning. Sluice boxes are used in the recovery of black sands, gold. They may be small-scale, as used in prospecting, or much larger, as in commercial operations, typical sluices have transverse riffles over a carpet, which trap the heavy minerals, gemstones, and other valuable minerals. Cast Iron Cast iron has been popular when constructing sluice gates for years and this material is great at keeping the strength needed when dealing with powerful water levels. Stainless Steel Stainless steel in most cases is lighter than the older cast iron material, fibre-reinforced plastic Rather recently a new technologies such as fibre-reinforced plastic are being used to build sluices. This modern technology has many of the attributes as the older ways while bringing in new attributes such as corrosion resistance, in the Somerset Levels, sluice gates are known as clyse or clyce
32.
Mathematician
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A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in his or her work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematics is concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, one of the earliest known mathematicians was Thales of Miletus, he has been hailed as the first true mathematician and the first known individual to whom a mathematical discovery has been attributed. He is credited with the first use of deductive reasoning applied to geometry, the number of known mathematicians grew when Pythagoras of Samos established the Pythagorean School, whose doctrine it was that mathematics ruled the universe and whose motto was All is number. It was the Pythagoreans who coined the term mathematics, and with whom the study of mathematics for its own sake begins, the first woman mathematician recorded by history was Hypatia of Alexandria. She succeeded her father as Librarian at the Great Library and wrote works on applied mathematics. Because of a dispute, the Christian community in Alexandria punished her, presuming she was involved, by stripping her naked. Science and mathematics in the Islamic world during the Middle Ages followed various models and it was extensive patronage and strong intellectual policies implemented by specific rulers that allowed scientific knowledge to develop in many areas. As these sciences received wider attention from the elite, more scholars were invited and funded to study particular sciences, an example of a translator and mathematician who benefited from this type of support was al-Khawarizmi. A notable feature of many working under Muslim rule in medieval times is that they were often polymaths. Examples include the work on optics, maths and astronomy of Ibn al-Haytham, the Renaissance brought an increased emphasis on mathematics and science to Europe. As time passed, many gravitated towards universities. Moving into the 19th century, the objective of universities all across Europe evolved from teaching the “regurgitation of knowledge” to “encourag productive thinking. ”Thus, seminars, overall, science became the focus of universities in the 19th and 20th centuries. Students could conduct research in seminars or laboratories and began to produce doctoral theses with more scientific content. According to Humboldt, the mission of the University of Berlin was to pursue scientific knowledge. ”Mathematicians usually cover a breadth of topics within mathematics in their undergraduate education, and then proceed to specialize in topics of their own choice at the graduate level. In some universities, a qualifying exam serves to test both the breadth and depth of an understanding of mathematics, the students, who pass, are permitted to work on a doctoral dissertation. Mathematicians involved with solving problems with applications in life are called applied mathematicians. Applied mathematicians are mathematical scientists who, with their knowledge and professional methodology. With professional focus on a variety of problems, theoretical systems
33.
Engineer
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Engineers design materials, structures, and systems while considering the limitations imposed by practicality, regulation, safety, and cost. The word engineer is derived from the Latin words ingeniare and ingenium, the work of engineers forms the link between scientific discoveries and their subsequent applications to human and business needs and quality of life. His/her work is predominantly intellectual and varied and not of a mental or physical character. It requires the exercise of original thought and judgement and the ability to supervise the technical, he/she is thus placed in a position to make contributions to the development of engineering science or its applications. In due time he/she will be able to give authoritative technical advice, much of an engineers time is spent on researching, locating, applying, and transferring information. Indeed, research suggests engineers spend 56% of their time engaged in various information behaviours, Engineers must weigh different design choices on their merits and choose the solution that best matches the requirements. Their crucial and unique task is to identify, understand, Engineers apply techniques of engineering analysis in testing, production, or maintenance. Analytical engineers may supervise production in factories and elsewhere, determine the causes of a process failure and they also estimate the time and cost required to complete projects. Supervisory engineers are responsible for major components or entire projects, Engineering analysis involves the application of scientific analytic principles and processes to reveal the properties and state of the system, device or mechanism under study. Most engineers specialize in one or more engineering disciplines, numerous specialties are recognized by professional societies, and each of the major branches of engineering has numerous subdivisions. Civil engineering, for example, includes structural and transportation engineering and materials engineering include ceramic, metallurgical, mechanical engineering cuts across just about every discipline since its core essence is applied physics. Engineers also may specialize in one industry, such as vehicles, or in one type of technology. Several recent studies have investigated how engineers spend their time, that is, research suggests that there are several key themes present in engineers’ work, technical work, social work, computer-based work, information behaviours. Amongst other more detailed findings, a recent work sampling study found that engineers spend 62. 92% of their time engaged in work,40. 37% in social work. The time engineers spend engaged in activities is also reflected in the competencies required in engineering roles. There are many branches of engineering, each of which specializes in specific technologies, typically engineers will have deep knowledge in one area and basic knowledge in related areas. When developing a product, engineers work in interdisciplinary teams. For example, when building robots an engineering team will typically have at least three types of engineers, a mechanical engineer would design the body and actuators
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Simon Stevin
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Simon Stevin, sometimes called Stevinus, was a Flemish/Dutch/Netherlandish mathematician, physicist and engineer. He was active in a great areas of science and engineering. Very little is known with certainty about Stevins life and what we know is mostly inferred from other recorded facts, the exact birth date and the date and place of his death are uncertain. It is assumed he was born in Bruges since he enrolled at Leiden University under the name Simon Stevinus Brugensis and his name is usually written as Stevin, but some documents regarding his father use the spelling Stevijn. This is a normal spelling shift in 16th century Dutch and he was born around the year 1548 to unmarried parents, Anthonis Stevin and Catelyne van der Poort. His father is believed to have been a son of a mayor of Veurne. While Simons father was not mentioned in the book of burghers, many other Stevins were later mentioned in the Poorterboeken. Simon Stevins mother Cathelijne was the daughter of a family from Ypres. Her father Hubert was a poorter of Bruges, Simons mother Cathelijne later married Joost Sayon who was involved in the carpet and silk trade and a member of the schuttersgilde Sint-Sebastiaan. Through her marriage Cathelijne became a member of a family of Calvinists and it is believed that Stevin grew up in a relatively affluent environment and enjoyed a good education. He was likely educated at a Latin school in his hometown, Stevin left Bruges in 1571 apparently without a particular destination. Stevin was most likely a Calvinist since a Catholic would likely not have risen to the position of trust he later occupied with Maurice, Prince of Orange and it is assumed that he left Bruges to escape the religious persecution of Protestants by the Spanish rulers. Based on references in his work Wisconstighe Ghedaechtenissen, it has been inferred that he must have moved first to Antwerp where he began his career as a merchants clerk. Some biographers mention that he travelled to Prussia, Poland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden and other parts of Northern Europe and it is possible that he completed these travels over a longer period of time. In 1577 Simon Stevin returned to Bruges and was appointed city clerk by the aldermen of Bruges and he worked in the office of Jan de Brune of the Brugse Vrije, the castellany of Bruges. Why he had returned to Bruges in 1577 is not clear and it may have been related to the political events of that period. Bruges was the scene of religious conflict. Catholics and Calvinists alternately controlled the government of the city and they usually opposed each other but would occasionally collaborate in order to counteract the dictates of King Philip II of Spain
35.
IJssel
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The River IJssel, sometimes called Gelderse IJssel to avoid confusion with the Hollandse IJssel, is the branch of the Rhine in the Dutch provinces of Gelderland and Overijssel. The Romans knew the river as Isala, the IJssel flows from Westervoort, east of the city of Arnhem, until it discharges into the IJsselmeer. The River IJssel is one of the three major distributary branches into which the Rhine divides shortly after crossing the German-Dutch border, the name includes the digraph ij, which behaves like a single letter in Dutch orthography - this explains why both letters appear capitalized. The name IJssel, is thought to derive from a Proto-Indo-European root *eis- to move quickly, in the Middle Ages, the Zuiderzee had not yet formed, and in its place there was an inland lake known as Vlies, and the IJssel flowed through the surrounding lakelands. It is hypothesised that the tidal inlets near Medemblik and the IJ once were branches of river IJssel. The river was a line of defence and in April 1945 had to be stormed by assault troops of the Allied armies liberating the Netherlands from the occupying forces of Nazi Germany. Canadian histories refer to the river in English as Ijssel, the IJssel was the lower part of the small river Oude IJssel, that rises in Germany and is now a 70 km long tributary of the IJssel. The current Oude IJssel is the second-largest contributor to the flow of the river until today, the source of the Oude IJssel is near Borken in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. First it flows south-west until it reaches the Rhine near Wesel. After passing through Isselburg it crosses the border with the Netherlands, the river, called Oude IJssel from here, then flows through Doetinchem and joins the IJssel at Doesburg. The average discharge of the IJssel can change significantly, the average discharge has been stated as 300 cubic meters per second. This can be as low as 140 and as high as 1800, depending on the Nederrijn locks west of Arnhem, the naturally occurring phenomenon of sedimental island-forming in the outside of bends has been regulated to the point of non-occurrence since the late nineteenth century. Various tributaries can sometimes add a volume of water to the total flow of the IJssel, such as the Berkel. The IJssel river is the branch of the Rhine delta that takes up tributary rivers rather than giving rise to distributaries. Only in the last few miles of the run, near the city of Kampen, distributaries form. Some of the branches have been dammed up to lower the risk of flooding, several of the delta branches are, however, still connected without interruption. Most of the damming-up was done prior to 1932, when the Zuiderzee was turned into the freshwater IJsselmeer lake, the modern-day names of the delta branches are, west to east, Keteldiep, Kattendiep, Noorddiep, Ganzendiep and Goot. Of these, the Keteldiep and Kattendiep channels are the main navigational arteries, another branch, De Garste, had already completely silted up by the middle of the nineteenth century
36.
Joop Atsma
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Johannes Jan Joop Atsma is a Dutch politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal party. Since 9 June 2015, he has been a member of the Senate, Atsma was the State Secretary for Infrastructure and the Environment in the first Rutte cabinet, serving from 14 October 2010 to 5 November 2012. He previously served as a Member of the House of Representatives from 19 May 1998 until 14 October 2010, Joop Atsma is the son of dairy farmer Pieter Atsma and Tjitske van der Meer. After secondary school, he began to study history to the University of Groningen, in 1978 he began his career as a journalist, he worked for the Netherlands Broadcasting Foundation, Friesch Dagblad, News of the North and Omrop Fryslân. From 1989 worked at the KNWU Straatsma, first as an amateur cycling section president, in the Olympic Games in Seoul Barcelona Atlanta and Sydney Atsma was chef dequipe of cycling. In 2009, Joop Atsma appointed chairman of the Road Committee of the International cycling body UCI and this committee is responsible for such regulation of wegsport, admitting teams, fixture lists and qualification criteria for World Championships and Olympic Games. Atsma 178ste during the meeting of the International Cycling Union in Lugano in 2009 again elected to the Board of the Union Cycliste Internationale, from 1994 to 2006 he was chairman of the Royal Dutch Cycling Union. Atsma began his career as a member of the Provincial States of Friesland. In 1998, Atsma was elected to the House and he took his oath in the Frisian language. In parliament he was involved with sports, agriculture, food, media and he was also chairman of the Standing Committee for Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality and vice chair of the standing committee on Health, Welfare and Sports. On October 14,2010 Atsma was appointed State Secretary for Infrastructure, because of this appointment Atsma at that date resigned all paid and unpaid functions and took distance from relevant business and financial interests
37.
Naviduct
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A naviduct is a special class of navigable aqueduct, in which the waterway also includes a lock. One example of a naviduct has been built at Enkhuizen on the Houtribdijk in the Netherlands on the instructions of the Rijkswaterstaat and this cost over €55 million and was completed in 2003. It is big enough to transfer two large Rhine river-barges from the Markermeer to the IJsselmeer or vice versa. The structure was chosen because a busy waterway crosses a dike carrying a busy road, the term is derived from the words lock and aqueduct, which are in turn partly derived from the Latin words navis meaning ship and ducere meaning to lead or conduct. It can also be thought of as a system with an underpass under the lock for road traffic. It is used extensively in the Netherlands when referring to the works near Enkhuizen, North Holland, the worlds first naviduct is near Enkhuizen, and is part of works commissioned in 1995 and administered in the Netherlands by the Rijkswaterstaat. This location is at the end of the Houtribdijk in the province of Flevoland. This dike was built as a northern border to build the Markerwaard polder in 1975. Until the building of the naviduct, marine transport between the two lakes had to cross the dike at the Krabbersgat lock or the Houtrib lock due to the lake levels. The two lakes have the target level, but wind surge and feed flows affect the two water bodies differently. Without a lock on the naviduct, the flow of water through the aqueduct could become too high for navigation, highway N302 runs along the dike between the two towns, with bascule bridges at the two lock locations. The naviduct is constructed in a specially designed polder, having an artificially managed water table depth of -12.00 m NAP, the polder is diamond-shaped with a length of 500m and a width of 160m, while its embankment is elevated to +6m NAP. The road under the naviduct reaches a depth of -10. 80m NAP, the polder guide dams were built using the geotextile tube method, where porous sausage-shaped bags are pumped full of sand slurry. The slurry is dewatered as the fill the bags, forming a stable structure that is subsequently covered with quarried stone. Both locks have a length of 125 meters, a width of 12.5 meters, special waterproof concrete was used for the locks, as they are designed to operate without the need for maintenance resulting from surface wear. The completed project cost €55 million before tax, the Dutch government is currently considering whether to replace some of its existing lock and opening bridge combinations with naviducts. Naviducts have a construction cost compared to standard locks and bridges. Strengthening of the locks was costed at €33 million, building new locks at €91 million
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Rail transport
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Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, also known as tracks. It is also referred to as train transport. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles run on a flat surface. Tracks usually consist of rails, installed on ties and ballast, on which the rolling stock, usually fitted with metal wheels. Other variations are possible, such as slab track, where the rails are fastened to a concrete foundation resting on a prepared subsurface. Rolling stock in a transport system generally encounters lower frictional resistance than road vehicles, so passenger. The operation is carried out by a company, providing transport between train stations or freight customer facilities. Power is provided by locomotives which either draw electric power from a railway system or produce their own power. Most tracks are accompanied by a signalling system, Railways are a safe land transport system when compared to other forms of transport. The oldest, man-hauled railways date back to the 6th century BC, with Periander, one of the Seven Sages of Greece, Rail transport blossomed after the British development of the steam locomotive as a viable source of power in the 19th centuries. With steam engines, one could construct mainline railways, which were a key component of the Industrial Revolution, also, railways reduced the costs of shipping, and allowed for fewer lost goods, compared with water transport, which faced occasional sinking of ships. The change from canals to railways allowed for markets in which prices varied very little from city to city. In the 1880s, electrified trains were introduced, and also the first tramways, starting during the 1940s, the non-electrified railways in most countries had their steam locomotives replaced by diesel-electric locomotives, with the process being almost complete by 2000. During the 1960s, electrified high-speed railway systems were introduced in Japan, other forms of guided ground transport outside the traditional railway definitions, such as monorail or maglev, have been tried but have seen limited use. The history of the growth, decline and restoration to use of transport can be divided up into several discrete periods defined by the principal means of motive power used. The earliest evidence of a railway was a 6-kilometre Diolkos wagonway, trucks pushed by slaves ran in grooves in limestone, which provided the track element. The Diolkos operated for over 600 years, Railways began reappearing in Europe after the Dark Ages. The earliest known record of a railway in Europe from this period is a window in the Minster of Freiburg im Breisgau in Germany
39.
Anna Paulowna
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Anna Paulowna is a former municipality and a town in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland. Since 2012, Anna Paulowna has been a part of the new municipality of Hollands Kroon, the former municipality of Anna Paulowna consisted of the following cities, towns, villages and/or districts, Anna Paulowna, Breezand, Nieuwesluis, Van Ewijcksluis, and Wieringerwaard. The town is served by Anna Paulowna railway station, the former municipal council of Anna Paulowna consisted of 15 seats
40.
Harlingen, Netherlands
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Harlingen is a municipality and a city in the northern Netherlands, in the province of Friesland at the Wadden Sea. Harlingen is a town with a history of fishing and shipping. Harlingen received city rights in 1234, Harlingen is served by two stations on the railway line from Leeuwarden. From 1904 to 1935 there was a service on the North Friesland Railway. Rederij Doeksen operate ferries to the Wadden islands of Vlieland and Terschelling that depart from Harlingen, the famous Dutch writer Simon Vestdijk was born in Harlingen and used to depict his hometown in his writings as Lahringen. The town of Harlingen, Texas, in the United States is named after this city many of the original settlers of the Texas town came from Harlingen. The Admiralty of Friesland was established in Dokkum in 1597 but moved to Harlingen in 1645, Harlingen Midlum Wijnaldum Harlingen travel guide from Wikivoyage Official website streaming webcams Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Harlingen
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Drawbridge
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A drawbridge or draw-bridge is a type of movable bridge typically associated with the entrance of a castle and a number of towers, surrounded by a moat. Medieval castles were usually defended by a ditch or moat, crossed by wooden bridge, in early castles the bridge might be designed to be destroyed or removed in the event of an attack, but drawbridges became very common. It would be backed by one or more portcullises and gates, access to the bridge could be resisted with missiles from machicolations above or arrow slits in flanking towers. The bridge would be raised or lowered using ropes or chains attached to a windlass in a chamber in the gatehouse above the gate-passage, only a very light bridge could be raised in this way without any form of counterweight, so some form of bascule arrangement is normally found. The raising chains could themselves be attached to counterweights, in some cases, a portcullis provides the weight, as at Alnwick. In France, working drawbridges survive at a number of châteaux, in England, two working drawbridges remain in regular use at Helmingham Hall, which dates from the early sixteenth century. A bridge pivoted on central trunnions is called a turning bridge, the inner end carried counterweights enabling it to sink into a pit in the gate-passage, and when horizontal the bridge would often be supported by stout pegs inserted through the side walls. This was an arrangement, and many turning bridges were replaced with more advanced drawbridges. Bascule bridge Drawbridge mentality Portcullis Linkspan
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Nederlandse Spoorwegen
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Nederlandse Spoorwegen or NS is the principal passenger railway operator in the Netherlands. NS provides rail services on the Dutch main rail network, the rail infrastructure is maintained by network manager ProRail, which was split off from NS in 2003. Freight services, formerly operated by NS Cargo, merged with the DB Schenker group in 2000, NS runs 4,800 scheduled domestic trains a day, serving 1.1 million passengers. Also, NS provides international rail services from the Netherlands to other European destinations, the NS was founded in 1938 when the two largest Dutch railway companies, the Hollandsche IJzeren Spoorweg-Maatschappij and the Maatschappij tot Exploitatie van Staatsspoorwegen, formally merged. These two companies had already been intensively cooperating as early as 1917, There were both economic and ideological reasons for the cooperation. As a result of the First World War, the Dutch economy had declined causing HSM, given their national importance, allowing them to slip into bankruptcy was not considered acceptable. While remaining independent companies, HSM and SS improved overall efficiency by cooperatively integrating their operations, the Dutch government further supported HSM and SS by purchasing shares in both firms. In 1938, the government merged the two companies to form the Nederlandse Spoorwegen, in the process, the government bought all remaining shares, yet never nationalized the company. Therefore, NS remained, and still is, a company solely owned by the Dutch government. The NS went on a strike once during the war, in the winter of 1944-45, the NS played a pivotal role in the reconstruction of the country. There was little alternative transport in the country besides the train, while the 1950s were a good time for the company, it started to decline in the 1960s, like most other railways around the world. The NS had been involved in the transport of coal from the mines in Limburg to the remainder of the country, the NS responded with an aggressive strategy named Spoorslag 70. This strategy meant, among other things, that the NS substantially increased the number of trains per hour, however, it was quite clear that this would never return the company to profitability. Nevertheless, the company was declared to be of national importance, in the early 1990s, the government started to question the subsidies given to the NS. Not only were there questions regarding the way the NS spent the subsidies, the government decided on the verzelfstandiging of the NS. The idea was not only rail transport was economically viable. There were two external circumstances which allowed for this to happen, secondly, the old CEO of the NS, Leo Ploeger, retired, which allowed the government to name a new CEO which would execute the governments plans. The new CEO was Rob den Besten, the plans entailed that the government would remain responsible for the rail infrastructure, while the NS would provide the transport on a commercial basis
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