Subject: Re: Dutch provincial North sea<br/>
Date: Dec 17, 2001 @ 20:15<br/>
Author: ps1966nl (&quot;ps1966nl&quot; &lt;smaardijk@...&gt;)<br/>
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<div id="ygrps-yiv-1870722002">Grant Hutchison wrote:<br/>
Even if sea level has risen, it&#39;ll still fall just as dramatically on<br/>
that day - 30 or 40% lower than the usual spring tide levels.<br/>
I can imagine the occasional church spire poking into view for the<br/>
first time in 500 years - like Escher&#39;s Cathédrale Engloutie in <br/>
reverse.<br/>
(Ironic, really, given that Escher was Dutch - the Netherlands is so<br/>
much better prepared for sea-level change than anywhere else, yours is<br/>
perhaps the only coastal country that *won&#39;t* have a drowned <br/>
cathedral!)<br/>
<br/>
At the moment, we have more trouble keeping fluvial water out (when <br/>
it has snowed and rained for months in France and the Alps) then that <br/>
it is the sea that is at it again. Since 1953, that problem has been <br/>
dealt with rigourously (but never once and for all!), but it is now <br/>
the relatively high province of Limbourg that is threatened by a <br/>
river Meuse surpassing its banks every spring, and people also get <br/>
used to anxiously listening to the radio reports of the water levels <br/>
at Lobith, every time the river Rhine is trying to regain its former <br/>
playground...<br/>
<br/>
BTW: reminds me of the Escher drawing in which water flows &quot;upwards&quot; <br/>
and falls &quot;downwards&quot; in a waterfall...<br/>
<br/>
Peter S.</div>