Original subtitles

Narrator: The netherlands is home to the most advanced

Water-defense systems and technologies in the world.

"god created the earth.

The dutch created the netherlands."

Narrator: Without its fortress- like barriers and dikes,

This country would have met the same fate

As atlantis centuries ago.

Claus: We would be below the water level.

Our dikes and our dunes

Wouldn't be able to withstand the storms.

Narrator: Today, the netherlands' massive

Flood-prevention network

Protects more than 17 million people

And safeguards crops that feed millions.

But the battle against the sea continues.

Due to rising sea levels and increased rainfall,

Flooding threatens to destroy the country's coastal regions.

Well, it's definitely urgency to do this.

The threat is real.

It's here, and it's not about tomorrow.

This is not an abstract thing.

Narrator: Now the most advanced flood-prevention system

Is facing its greatest challenge yet.

It'll be up to its engineers to develop new technologies

And rethink water-prevention methods to ensure

That the netherlands remains above water.

-- Captions by vitac -- www.Vitac.Com

Captions paid for by discovery communications

The netherlands --

A country not only admired for its placid beauty,

But also its forward-thinking engineers

And technological advancements in water management.

The dutch's expertise in water is as old as the country itself.

Over time, the dutch have transformed the seafloor

Into the most fertile land on the planet

Through their innovative water-defense systems.

We constantly have a system to check

All the water-protection system to levees and the dikes

And see if it's, for the current situation

And for what we see in the next 50 years --

If it's strong enough.

Narrator: This complex system

Is regularly maintained and upgraded.

It stretches over 250 miles --

The length of the dutch coastline.

For centuries,

The people of the netherlands have kept the land safe

From flooding through their use of early technologies

And their mastery of coastal engineering.

However, this sense of safety hasn't always protected the land

From encountering danger.

We had a big flood in 1953,

Which really triggered the importance

And the urgency of this.

About more than 1,800 people died.

And one of the dikes broke, and all the water of the sea

Just flew into the country, which made a big disaster

Because people were not prepared for it.

We all agree it can never happen again.

Narrator: And the battle to keep the country

From becoming completely flooded just keeps getting tougher.

The netherlands started out as one big marsh

Separated from the sea by a belt of sand dunes.

After decades of disastrous flooding,

The people developed strategies to keep the water out.

Initially, they relied on windmills

To pump water out of swampy areas

And dikes to prevent flooding from the sea.

But over time, the dutch came to realize an alarming truth --

Draining the water was causing the land to sink.

And the country's still sinking due to land subsidence,

Or the sinking of the earth,

Due to underground-material movement

Often caused by the removal of water.

Subsidence happens when large amounts of groundwater

Is removed from certain types of rocks or ground materials.

Since the water is partly responsible

For holding the ground up,

When the water is withdrawn, the earth starts to contract,

Causing gravity to pull the land down.

Subsidence is a major worry in a country

That is so densely populated.

After the great flood of 1953,

The dutch built a massive water- fighting storm-surge barrier

Around the rhine-meuse delta.

It stands guard at the entrance to the port of rotterdam.

♪

The maeslant storm-surge barrier

Is the largest moving structure in the world.

Controlled by a supercomputer,

This massive water-defense system

Is designed to automatically close

When rotterdam is threatened by floods.

We had to defend netherlands

Against flooding from the north sea,

And we constructed a lot of dunes, dikes, dams,

And, also, six big storm-surge barriers.

Narrator: Marc walraven's job is to ensure the barrier gates

Are ready to swing into action.

The bottom tubes are about 6 feet,

So not a tall person could walk through it.

This place where the arm starts, to the end of the gates

And the whole length of, is ball joints

And the concrete construction.

If you look at the arms, you can see the welding places.

And all these spots were constructed,

Welded here at this location.

It took about 160 hours to make one welding.

It took, actually, in total, about seven years

Of construction to make this barrier.

Narrator: The barrier consists of two giant steel gates

That operate on ball and socket joints.

Each gate is nearly as long as the eiffel tower

And weighs four times as much.

Walraven: But the real heavy part of the barrier is just behind here.

It's about 50,000 tons of concrete.

Narrator: Under calm sea conditions,

The doors remain fully open,

Providing a 1,180-foot-wide passageway for ships.

Maeslant storm-surge barrier is built in this way

That there's never any interference with shipping

Where they're going to the port of rotterdam.

It's not good for the economics of this port

To have a front door that's constantly closed.

But this has advantages on an ecological basis, as well,

As it's constantly free flow of water and fish.

Narrator: But when a storm surge is predicted,

The giant gates move towards each other along a rail,

Closing the waterway.

The gates shut with the help

Of the largest ball joints ever made.

The ball bearings were originally fabricated

In the czech republic,

And it's done 10 meters' diameter of steel.

It's about 680 tons of steel.

Narrator: The gates are operated automatically in two

Different parts of the country.

If they both stopped working,

Diesel generators on-site would kick into action.

60 electric pumps force water into the hollow gates.

Because the waterway is so heavy,

It draws the barrier down

More than three stories onto the seabed.

We'll fill the 13 compartments per gate with water.

And slowly it will sink to the bottom of the river.

We don't have any single points of failure,

So everything has to be redundant.

And as you see, more pipes means there are more pumps

Within those compartments

To be sure that if one pump fail,

We use the second or third pump. To pump the water out of it

And to get the barrier raising again.

Narrator: Machines this tough come with a hefty price tag --

Half a billion dollars.

But in the netherlands, this isn't an expense --

It's an investment.

Consider hurricane katrina in louisiana in 2005

And hurricane harvey in texas in 2017.

Each caused more than $100 billion in damage.

Walraven: Of course, storm-surge barriers cost a lot of money.

But if you compare that to the recovering of an area

That's been flooded

Or even raising old dikes behind this, it's not comparable.

And this stands for another 50 to 100 years.

Narrator: The dutch command center is located in lelystad.

Technicians monitor data from ships at sea, remote buoys,

And offshore weather stations.

Teunis: Here, the forecasts are made for the water level,

Which, in turn, is used by the maeslant barrier

To decide when to close.

Narrator: If the situation becomes critical,

Ships in and around rotterdam

Need to get out of the way -- and fast.

Walraven: About two hours before closing,

Any shipping is prohibited.

And then at that moment

When the prediction of the water levels

Is at the right level,

Then we will start the procedures.

Narrator: The operations system gives the go-ahead.

So, if we give a forecast which says it will be

More than 3 meters in rotterdam,

Then it would close based on this forecast.

But it's done automatically.

Narrator: The automated system can be controlled

By marc's team at any point.

We found out computers are not infallible,

And we had to add some reliability to the whole system.

And then we decided to have more interference with people

And the operational team, and to train people

To monitor the systems.

Narrator: Since its completion, the barrier has been closed

Only once from a strong storm. But just like the weather,

It's hard to predict when another closure will happen.

Teunis: We put the information on the internet,

And all the people who need the information

Can use this information to take the right measures.

Walraven: We expect to have more closures in future.

People are focused. We focus on what our task is here to do,

And that's what we're trained for.

Narrator: While the modern generation creates stronger

And more sophisticated barriers,

Many before them turned to another line of defense.

They may not be as big and bold as today's creations,

But they're some of the heaviest hitters

In the netherlands arsenal of mega machines.

♪

♪

Narrator: For centuries,

The netherlands has engaged in a battle against the sea.

The country is situated in a low-lying delta formed

By the outflow of three major rivers.

1/3 of the country is below sea level,

And 2/3 is vulnerable to flooding.

To reclaim their land from swamps and marshes,

The dutch developed early technologies,

Such as windmills, to drain swampy areas

And create polders, or dry-land plots, surrounded by dikes.

Jan willem preserves

And maintains some of the original windmills

That helped build the country.

Optimizing windmill energy, power output,

And protecting the mill from damage during inclement weather

Are all attributed to jan's expertise.

Simple to remove because, sometimes,

We only have 15 minutes to remove to sail

When a big thunderstorm is coming.

Narrator: During harsh weather,

Wind speeds of more than 75 miles per hour

Could rip the windmill blades right off.

Willem: So, we need to pump up the water to drain it.

And that's what this scoop wheel is for.

Just on the power of the winds,

The mechanism of the windmill drives this big scoop will,

And it lifts up the water over a doorstep into the canal

That is connected with the level of the river.

Narrator: Wind energy turns the blades,

Which drives a gear inside the windmill.

That gear converts the rotary motion to a second gear,

Called the great spur wheel.

It connects to a car, which turns the paddle wheel.

The paddle wheel pumps and scoops water

From the lower side of the windmill

To the higher side of the windmill.

A single windmill can lift water about 3 feet high.

Often three or four windmills are connected

For even greater lift.

Today, there are over 900 functioning windmills

In the netherlands.

Their presence is a constant reminder of the role

They played in shaping the country.

Teunis: In the medieval ages,

The poldering of the netherlands started.

We started to build polders,

Essentially take a piece of water,

Build a dike around it,

And pump the water out, and then you have a polder.

Narrator: Poldering transformed marshlands

Into neighborhoods and fertile farmland.

So, we have this saying in the netherlands --

That "god created earth.

The dutch created the netherlands."

Which is actually --

You can make jokes about this, of course,

But, in fact, it's true.

Half of the netherlands was below sea level.

And if we wouldn't have been doing these waterworks,

Half of the country wouldn't be there.

Narrator: Much of the country didn't even exist 1,000 years ago.

♪

The shape of holland has dramatically changed, too.

17% of the coastline was altered.

More than 2,700 square miles

Used to be under the sea.

That's larger than the state of delaware.

As important as windmills once were, today,

The dutch are looking to build bigger

And more sustainable structures

To protect the land from flooding.

The flood of 1953 wasn't the first disaster

To cause mass devastation to the country.

During the middle of the night in January 1916,

Villages that formed north amsterdam

And large parts of north holland

Were flooded due to a winter storm

That breached dikes in several places.

The incident resulted in many houses being washed away,

And a large number of livestock and people lost their lives.

The disaster led to the construction

Of the great afsluitdijk,

Which still benefits the netherlands today.

The dutch government determined the project was so crucial,

It invested billions to protect the central part

Of the netherlands from the effects of the south sea,

Or what the dutch call the zuiderzee.

They decided to build a dike, a large dike,

The afsluitdijk, in the north part of zuiderzee,

Closing it off from the sea, which then became a lake.

Narrator: 10,000 people worked to construct the afsluitdijk,

Which spanned the entire width of the zuiderzee.

In 1932, construction completed.

And the afsluitdijk became part of the larger zuiderzee works,

Which was considered by many to be a crowning achievement

Of modern engineering.

It's incredible what they've done 70 years ago.

It's incredible how they would have done it,

Because every block, literally by hand,

Placed it somewhere else.

And it's a big puzzle.

So every block fitted exactly to the block before.

And I have no clue how they done it.

I'm a civil engineer, and I've got a specialization

In hydraulic engineering.

So this really is my cup of tea.

This is really what my heart gets pumping.

Narrator: It took workers five years of hauling rock and piling clay

On top of layers of brushwood to complete construction,

And all of that hard work certainly paid off.

The afsluitdijk stood up to the storm surge of 1953

That obliterated older dikes.

It's still the primary protection

For the heart of the country, including the city of amsterdam,

An important financial center for europe

And home to 2 million people.

The afsluitdijk was originally built to prevent flooding.

But engineers discovered it had an added benefit.

The construction of the afsluitdijk

Changed the salty zuiderzee

Into a freshwater lake that they call ijesselmeer.

This marvel of engineering has helped the netherlands grow

Into an agricultural giant.

Hopmans: The dutch have a lot of greenhouses,

A lot of water from the ijsselmeer,

Which is behind the afsluitdijk,

Is being used to water those crops.

And over the years, the dutch have become

One of the greatest food-exporting countries

In the world.

Narrator: But like all technologies,

There's always room for improvements.

Today, engineers fear that without proper maintenance,

A severe flood would not only disrupt the food supply

To cities around the world,

But it would also put the country at risk.

To avoid catastrophe,

Engineers will need to come up with new, innovative ways

To ensure that the dam can withstand rising sea levels

And hold up to today's extreme weather conditions.

♪

♪

Narrator: As early as the 17th century,

Dutch engineers have implemented water-protection systems

To defend the country from the stormy north sea.

The afsluitdijk dam and 20-mile causeway

Has protected the netherlands against flooding

For more than 85 years.

But recently, engineers have raised concerns

About the sustainability of the aging water-defense system.

The north sea can produce waves that can be violent and brutal.

To prevent any future disasters,

The dutch government has embarked

On a future-proofing project

To reinforce the afsluitdijk and prevent erosion.

It's at this testing facility

That scientists have been experimenting

With the latest technology to produce custom-made waves.

This innovative technology is called the delta flume.

At nearly 1,000 feet long,

This electrically powered wave board

Can hold more than 2 million gallons of water

And can simulate wave patterns found at sea

Or in rivers up to 16 feet tall.

Today, mark klein breteler and his team

Are testing the stability limits

Of a 1/3-scale model of a section of the afsluitdijk.

And how we do that is by doing a laser scan.

So we have a laser that scans the whole structure.

We do that before the test.

And that measures actually every position

Of all the blocks which are in the structure.

And after the test, we do that again,

And we compare the two.

And in this way, we can figure out

Every millimeter of change in the structure.

And that gives us the information to actually conclude

Whether it is sufficiently stable or not.

Narrator: The wave board pushes the water back and forth,

Mimicking the force of a storm surge.

That's enough force to move five brick houses.

The basic idea is the same as in your bathtub.

In your bathtub, you can move your hands

Like that, and then you get waves.

We have a lot of machinery and computers

That know exactly how the wave board should move

To get the right waves in the flume.

Narrator: Mark's team is testing the strength of level blocks --

12-ton prefabricated pieces of concrete.

What we had before in one of the tests

Is that such a block all but washed out.

And that is a serious thing, of course.

And at that moment, we changed the design of these blocks.

So these holes are added.

When we do the tests,

Those waves are hitting in the structure,

And a lot of energy

Is then dissipated between the big stones.

Those blocks are supporting each other.

Narrator: Hundreds of thousands of smaller blocks,

Called quatro blocks, will also be put to the test.

The goal? To slow the momentum of the surging sea.

You can see that those blocks are lower here

And a little bit higher here.

And that is giving us a rough slope.

So, they're hitting against these blocks,

And that makes that they do not run up so easily

As they would have done if it's all smooth.

Narrator: The team will need to minimize the amount of water

That could breach the barrier.

The target -- less than 3 gallons

Per second per foot

During the test, you see the water level rising there.

And at the end of the test,

We actually know how much water went over the crest.

And that gives us the information

To actually calculate

How much wave overtopping per second to place.

The waves at the afsluitdijk are kind of violent waves.

They are quite short.

And that is what you will see also during the tests.

And, yeah, of course, we want to know

Whether the structure will be stable or not.

So we'll see.

Narrator: For more than 14 hours,

The water in the flume crashes against the model,

Simulating the intensity of a storm surge.

Scans show the rocks didn't budge,

And only a small amount of water washed over the model.

Ockeloen: The blocks and the rocks didn't move.

And we also didn't have too much overtopping.

I'm proud that the blocks and the rocks that we designed here

Will keep the country safe for the next 100 years.

Narrator: Meanwhile, thousands of blocks

Are about to go into production

At a brand-new facility near the afsluitdijk.

These components are not only strong --

They're smart.

They're embedded with a radio frequency,

Or rfid chip, similar to ones implanted in animals.

We can trace it back to our database and exactly know

Which day with which kind of concrete we poured the block.

Narrator: The blocks also have an opening,

Which allows cranes to grasp them easily.

And they're shaped to form an impenetrable wall.

Reconstruction has begun on the afsluitdijk.

It's difficult work that can only be done in the few hours

When the tide is low.

♪

At this worksite, oxana van kempen is in charge.

She's accountable if this equipment gets swept away.

I'm checking the tide table at the moment.

The water level will be rising,

So within half an hour or an hour,

It might be as high as this filter material.

And then within another hour, it will rise up to here.

So then you cannot see the filter layer anymore.

And then, two hours from now, we will be underwater.

Narrator: So far, the team has been able to rebuild the barrier

Without any major incidents.

We're really at the start.

This is the first kilometer

Of the whole track of the afsluitdijk

That needs to be replaced and reconstructed.

So we're at the starting place, literally.

Narrator: At the other end of the barrier,

Anna hoondert is in charge of installing the first stretch

Of the new quatro blocks.

Hoondert: In the construction over here,

We are placing these quatro block on the, like, gravel.

And we're placing them with a crane

With a special machine for it.

The interactive strengths will get bigger

If we put a little gravel between them.

Narrator: Using a specially designed crane,

Anna's team carefully positions

Each 2,500-pound quatro block.

If this barrier ever fails,

They'll provide a clue to what went wrong.

You have a serial number and a date on it.

So from the serial number and the date, you can see

When they were made, in what conditions they were made,

Whether it was the weather.

Narrator: Anna hoondert and oxana van kempen

Are part of a new generation of determined engineers.

You can plan as much as you like,

But the weather can be such a way that it's not possible

That you can do your planned action,

So you have to be very flexible.

It's really amazing to be part of this beautiful project

To protect the netherlands from the water.

Narrator: A positive outlook is important when the goal is

To save your country by using an aging defense system.

And parts of the current network don't meet today's standards,

So it's going to take an army of workers

And mega machines to bring them up to code.

♪

♪

Narrator: In the netherlands,

Water is more than the subject of casual conversation.

It's the greatest threat to the country's security.

3/4 of the country lies in a flood zone,

And a lot of it is farmland.

Over the centuries, the dutch have become water experts,

Utilizing the latest in water-management technology.

All of it's covered with these pumps.

Narrator: And they're showing no signs of slowing down.

Haasnoot: It's very urgent to prepare for the future.

The conditions that we have prepared for --

Up to 1 meter of sea-level rise, for example.

The change in conditions may go much faster.

If we didn't have those water-management systems,

Holland would flood,

With a big rainstorm, we couldn't get it to the sea.

So we would flood pretty fast.

Narrator: In the last 50 years,

Local water councils called waterschappen

Have spent $150 billion

Building and maintaining flood-prevention systems.

We actually every 12 years need to go through

A really rigorous assessment of these dikes --

If they still meet the standards.

Narrator: By the end of the century,

They expect to spend another $133 billion

On new projects that will address rising sea levels.

In the coastal city of delfzijl,

Work to raise a nearly 8-mile stretch of dike

Has already started.

A couple of years ago, we found out

That this dike wasn't coming up

To this national safety standards anymore,

So we knew we had to strengthen it, reinforce it.

Narrator: Silvia mosterd oversees this project.

She works for the waterschap, one of 21 regional water boards

In the netherlands responsible for local flood controls.

You can see that the water level right now, it's low water,

So the water's not against the dike.

But you can see the water on this side is much higher.

It's about 1 to 2 meters higher than the land.

So if we didn't have

This dike all the way to the city of holweirde,

Which is about 30, 35 kilometers from here, we'll flood.

Narrator: Reconstructing a dike is no easy feat.

Silvia and her crew are tasked

With raising the dike 6 1/2 feet.

The pressure on the project is pretty high

Because they had to do this in about 2, 2 1/2 years,

Which is, for a 12-kilometer dike reinforcement like this,

A very small amount of time.

Narrator: And work on this section of the dike is top priority.

In the last decade, the area along the coast

Has been on high alert for flooding,

Threatening neighborhoods, livestock, and nature preserves.

So when the trucks arrive, no one wastes any time.

You can really smell it right now.

Narrator: To raise the dike,

The team will use nearly 265 million gallons of sand,

92 million gallons of clay,

And just over 7,700 tons of asphalt.

But time is not on their side.

It'll take nearly a year

And a half for all the materials to get to the site.

Mosterd: So, 2 1/2 years is pretty short,

But we're doing it faster than average

Because of the earthquakes in this area,

Because of the gas extraction.

All the government here in groningen decided

That we had to do this faster than average.

Narrator: Not only that --

Construction will soon be impossible.

We always talk about the storm season.

That is from October till April,

That there can happen more storms here,

And you're officially not able to work on a dike like this.

Narrator: Rain or shine, it's gonna take years

To complete the upgrades along the entire coast.

I'm not sure this dike is gonna protect us

In a 100 years. Maybe we'll need two dikes.

Maybe we'll need a flooding area right beside the dike,

So we have to move more inland. I don't know.

That's the uncertainty we have to live with right now.

We have to find a way in the netherlands

To survive against flooding.

And that means that a lot of municipalities,

Water boards, and provinces have to cooperate.

If you protect an area by a dike against floods,

It's only gonna work as well as the weakest link.

Narrator: Across the netherlands,

More than 600 miles of dikes urgently need

To be reinforced in the next decade.

While construction ramps up on coastal dikes,

Super pumps are fast becoming one of the country's

Most crucial mega machines.

♪

♪

Narrator: In the battle against rising sea levels

And unpredictable weather patterns,

The netherlands is the global leader

In the field of water management.

That threat is real.

It's here, and it's not about tomorrow.

This is not an abstract thing.

Narrator: Since the netherlands is situated

In a low-lying delta,

More than half the nation is at or below sea level.

To prevent the country from flooding,

The dutch have made water research

And monitoring their number-one priority.

A lack of water monitoring

Would not only put lives at risk,

But also the country's agricultural sector.

Nyenbanning: If it's 5 centimeters going down,

The farmers can't call us and say,

"hey, I don't have enough water for my crops."

So it's very precise work to follow the water.

Narrator: Since one-third of the country

Is vulnerable to flooding,

Dutch engineers are constantly finding ways

To protect the population from the invading water.

Not far from the massive afsluitdijk barrier,

Hydrological engineer thijs claus and his crew

Are building a structure that will house

One of the most powerful water systems in the world.

We're gonna build one of the biggest in europe.

It consists of six pumps in total,

And these pumps will pump roughly

40 cubic meters per second.

So in total, it's gonna be 240 cubic meters per second

That we're gonna pump.

Narrator: That's the same as

Filling 1,500 bathtubs per second,

Except they're sending this water back out to sea.

Constructing the new pumping station

Requires a drill more than 65 feet long.

Claus: The big machine is gonna drive down

A number of tube sections next to each other.

And in between those tube sections,

We're gonna make sheet piles

To make a combination wall is what we call it.

And that wall is gonna be part of the building pit.

Narrator: The giant pipes are armed with rugged teeth

To help them penetrate into the soil.

This work takes horsepower

And the help of a special lubricant

Made of bentonite,

A clay composed of volcanic ash.

Claus: This is the bentonite mixed with sand.

And this is what we lubricate the pile with.

And afterwards, we replace the bentonite with grout.

We have the surveyor behind us

Making sure that the pile is straight

And that the pile is within tolerance

Given by the design by us.

And the surveyor's constantly

Checking whether the pile goes down straight.

So it should be no problem at this moment.

Narrator: The crew can't afford a lot of setbacks.

This job has to be finished before the weather turns.

And it's got to be done right

Because it needs to last at least 30 years.

Here's how the new super pumps will work.

Water is pumped through an intake pipe

Into a sealed cylinder.

A wheel of curved blades spins like a washing machine

On a rinse cycle.

Then centrifugal force propels the water out into the ocean.

To power the pump station,

Engineers turned to a natural source of energy.

To provide power for this pumping station,

We're gonna build a solar park.

So it's gonna be placed on our current office.

And afterwards, the solar park will provide enough energy

To power the pumps.

Narrator: Most of the dutch still rely on pumps

To protect their land

And livelihoods from rising sea levels.

And for now, they're getting the job done.

If we didn't have these pumps near the coast,

The water would all go up here,

And the level of the water would still rising,

Rising each day.

So it's quite a bit.

Narrator: The other flooding protection system

The dutch count on is the sluice gates,

A key component of the afsluitdijk.

These gates keep stormy seas at bay

And prevent ocean salt from contaminating fresh water.

They work when there's low tide on the watershed,

The gates on the sluice gates, they go open

And the water flows freely from the freshwater lake

Which is behind us to the watershed.

And so it costs no energy and it helps regulate the level

On the freshwater lake.

Narrator: Sluice gates operate when the ocean tide is low.

The upper half slides down

Alongside the lower half of the gate.

Gravity pulls water from the higher freshwater side

Over the top of the gates and into the sea.

These sluice gates may be energy efficient,

But they're wearing down with age.

Engineers are concerned that the floor under the gates

Is starting to disintegrate.

The soil is keeping the sluice gates in its position.

And if the soil is being eroded away,

There's a big possibility that the entire

Sluices are being pushed aside.

And in that specific case, then the entire dam would fill.

Narrator: Today, hydrological engineer roy hopmans

And his crew are hauling out and replacing

The aging concrete floor.

Hopmans: The new one is gonna be --

It's going to have a varying thickness

Of 1 meter to 1.35 meter,

Which is obviously much thicker,

Much stronger to withstand all the current

That might be rushing in one day.

Narrator: For the dutch, water maintenance and prevention

Is a way of life.

They've been doing it for so long,

They've become the best water warriors in the world.

And now, more than ever, other countries around the world

Are turning to the dutch for how

They can manage their own water problems.

♪

♪

Narrator: As the weather in the netherlands

Becomes more extreme and sea levels continue to rise.

Protecting the country from flooding won't be easy.

It's going to take a lot of money,

A lot of effort,

And the greatest mega machines on earth.

And it's not just a problem in the netherlands.

Cities like miami and venice are also fighting their own war

Against rising water, but thanks to the dutch,

Who have been developing new water management techniques

For centuries, other countries are now

Turning to the netherlands for their expertise.

More and more, we work with international organizations

Like the world bank, the u.N.,

But also our partnering countries

To really incorporate resiliency

And a comprehensive, holistic thinking

In how to deal with water and use that as an asset

To build resiliency in these places.

Narrator: Henk ovink is the netherlands' water ambassador.

In 2015, the world economic forum

Put out our risk report saying

Water would be our number-one risk for the next decade.

Narrator: Henk travels the world

Sharing his country's immense water know-how.

Dutch expertise is in such demand,

Former president barack obama flew henk in to help

During hurricane sandy in 2012.

The other skill set that's in global demand

Is how to build storm barriers.

Experts like marc walraven get all kinds of questions.

How do you deal with contractors?

How do you keep your best personnel?

How do you keep knowledge within your organization

That constantly is changing

As well as governmental organization?

Narrator: That's how I-storm was born.

It's an international information exchange system

Focusing on storm-barrier technology.

Italy, britain, and the u.S. Are all partners.

As one of the creators of I-storm,

Marc walraven led a multinational team

That came to the aid of the u.S. Army corps of engineers

After storm surges from hurricane katrina

Breached the levee system protecting new orleans

In several places.

We share our expertise, and they translate that

To their own storm-surge barriers,

How they can learn from our experiences

To define their maintenance operations organization.

And that's really helpful for new barriers.

Narrator: In addition to consulting on projects

Such as the new barrier in new orleans,

The dutch are exporting a new way of thinking.

I think that many countries look up to the netherlands

That we have so much experience

And they also invite us if there are problems.

Tijssen: It's in our genes.

We've been doing this for centuries

And we've been finding it important for centuries.

Basically, our first democratic bodies in government

Were water boards.

Narrator: One of the most common words

To describe the dutch countryside

That's been reclaimed from the sea --

The polder -- has taken on a much greater meaning.

We call it a polder model.

Our polders are made not by engineers alone.

They're made by planners and designers, engineers,

Politicians, farmers, citizens, everyone

Because every interest contributes to develop a polder

As a bigger whole with more ambition, more quality.

And that type of collaboration is critically,

Critically important for building resiliency

Around the world.

Narrator: At the moment, government officials

Are joining forces with engineers

And other experts to tackle a serious problem

Caused by the afsluitdijk.

Its original construction back in the 1930s

Severed a major fish migration route from the north sea.

The fishing industry took a big hit.

Fortunately, with the afsluitdijk overhaul,

There is an opportunity to fix this historic problem.

The team is designing the first ever fish corridor

Through a barrier.

Monderen: We've come up with a solution, we hope,

And that is to build a fish migration river

Next to the sluice complex,

To create an opening for these migratory fish

To move freely in and out of the fresh- and saltwater.

Well, the fish migration is the first of its kind.

No migration river has been built anywhere in the world.

And we don't know the precise effects,

But we're gonna monitor it once it gets completed.

Fokkens-kelder: For us, it's very important

Not only for the environment,

And not only for the nature, not only for the fishes

And that kind of things,

But maybe also for other problems around the world.

When it works here, it also will work other places.

Teunis: Together in the netherlands

For the management of the water

Can in several ways be an example for the world

Because water is necessary not for one stakeholder.

It's necessary for everyone.

So you have to cooperate to manage it correctly.

And that's not something you can easily copy.

But the principles, they can be taken over by other countries.

Narrator: In a nation that has waged war against rising water

For centuries,

The biggest battle is still ahead.

Extreme weather and sinking soil will put the netherlands'

Greatest engineering projects to the test.

And as the dutch continue to face challenges head on,

The rest of the world stands to benefit.