Two Centuries of Central Water Management in the Netherlands

For two centuries the Rijkswaterstaat has been responsible for public works in the Netherlands. Founded in 1798, this national government agency, which now numbers twelve thousand employees, has left its mark on the country. The river landscape has been completely re-created. Deep-sea inlets and large inland saltwater lakes such as the Zuider Zee have been cut off from the sea, reducing the country's coastline by about 2,800 kilometers (from 3,400 to 650). More than 350,000 hectares of land have been reclaimed. The Rijkswaterstaat has also been involved in infrastructure development. At present there are in the Netherlands 3,000 kilometers of railway lines, around 4,000 kilometers of navigable waterways, 18,000 kilometers of cycle paths, and more than 100,000 kilometers of asphalt roads. Numerous "structural works," as they are known in civil engineering parlance, dominate the Dutch landscape: weirs, locks, storm surge barriers, bridges, viaducts, cloverleafs, tunnels, overpasses, and the like. Such structures have taken the place of other features—church spires, windmills, pollard willows, poplars—that once dotted the horizon.

The Rijkswaterstaat cannot claim full credit or responsibility for all these structures. Many other actors influence public works and infrastructure. Water boards, for instance, are responsible for local water control and for maintaining water quality. The Rijkswaterstaat operates in a complex environment. It has to deal with the various administrative bodies (the state, provinces, municipalities, and water boards) responsible for similar types of public works and infrastructure. It inhabits an ambiguous area between government and private enterprise, since many tasks can be carried out by private companies. Furthermore, the agency sees itself as a civil service organization confronted by numerous political parties and social groups. Because public works and infrastructure are intertwined with so many different related sectors—agriculture, navigation, defense, environmental planning, and recreation, to name a few—these interest groups remain diverse. In its capacity as a professional organization the Rijkswaterstaat must also closely monitor relevant scientific and technological developments.

The Rijkswaterstaat's central role in Dutch society is taken for granted. The battle against water is vital to the country's survival, and it is a battle that the Rijkswaterstaat has fought successfully. But in its two hundred years the agency has also known less prosperous times. It has even experienced periods of acute crisis, in which social support for its operations faded and its existence hung by a thread. The changing tides of the Rijkswaterstaat are the theme of this essay. The questions posed are these: What has been the Rijkswaterstaat's role over the past two centuries in the shaping of the Netherlands, and what are the social and technological developments that have particularly influenced the way in which the Rijkswaterstaat operates? ¹

In answering these questions we may distinguish three distinct periods. During the first, which I will call the autocratic-traditional period, lasting from 1798 to 1850, the creation of the Rijkswaterstaat introduced a new element into the history of Dutch water management. The agency had to prove itself against powerful water boards with a rich tradition. It desperately sought acknowledgement by the national and provincial administrative elites. Only under the autocratic rule of King Willem I (1813-40) did the Rijkswaterstaat achieve a measure of prestige, thanks in part to its success with a few large water management projects. This period also saw the founding of a professional school for Rijkswaterstaat engineers.

From 1850 to 1930, an era that I will call the democratic-mechanized period, a democratic polity arose in which the upper class had a central role. This drastically changed administrative relations, to the great benefit of the Rijkswaterstaat, which obtained a solid position within the Dutch water management system. Engineers succeeded in resolving the main problems of water management, and other important structural works were realized under their control or with their assistance. The introduction of steam and other new technologies was essential to this success...