About Ben

Hi my name is Ben I and Isabella and Cazz are working on a water project on a blog. I am 8 years old and my birthday is on the 29th of May. Every weekend my brothers and I are allowed to play Wii.
I have 3 brothers; my big and small brothers and I like watching the world cup. Sometimes in the morning I eat sweets. I am the third funniest in the class.


For the holidays I go to the Czech Republic. I come from Holland and from the Czech Republic. I go to this city in the Czech Republic called "Svojsice."


                    Too much water?


Although I was born in Switzerland my dad is from the Netherlands. The Dutch people have always been very close to the water; they sailed across the world and found new countries. they have sailed the sea to fish for many years. But the water has also been their challenge. Most countries who have a water problem usually are short of water. You could say that the Netherlands at times has had too much water! I tell you why this is a little later.


A large part of the country lays below the level of the sea. This means if there would be no system to keep the water out much of the land would be flooded. The Dutch do have a system to keep or pump much of the water away from the land. Dykes are hills with grass on them which are built to keep out the sea water. Most of the time the Dykes work well. But in 1953 a combination of a high spring tide and a severe winds from the northwest caused a huge storm. The Dykes broke under the pressure of the incoming water. There was so much water coming in that the water was 5.6 meter above the level of the sea. On this 1st day in February many many people and animal died. After this the Dutch spend a lot of money to make the dikes stronger and to create large pumps to pump out the water. Also they made a big gate under the water. This gate could close off the water flow in case of storm. When the weather would be normal the gates would be open to allow a tidal flow.


The Dutch also pumped out so much water from the South Sea that it became a lake (The Ijsselmeer). Over the years they have taken more land from the sea to provide enough land for the Dutch people. They got so good at land reclamation that they were hired by Dubai to claim the palm islands and the world off of the Dubai Coast.