Dutch national public works Rijkswaterstaat can again delete a Room for the River project from its to-do list.
On 12 October, the partial depoldering of the Noordwaard, near Werkendam, the Netherlands, was officially completed.
Almost half of the original Noordwaard polder is now again subject to regular floods. Once in 1000 years the polder is expected completely flood with only 14 new built moulds and a road connecting them, to stay above water.
The depoldering of the Noordwaard is one of the 30 projects of the national Room for the River program that is run by Rijkswaterstaat to increase the discharge flow of the river Rhine to the North Sea.
The Room for the River program started in 2005 and is scheduled to be ready by the end of this year. So this year many projects are in their finale phase.
The full budget for the Room for the River programme is 2,3 billion euro, of which the depoldering of the Noordwaard took up 300 million euro.
The 4450 ha polder used to be protected from flooding by a 23 km long levee all the way around.
Now this levee has been removed on the south side of the polder and during high tide the water freely flows into the many creeks to the low lying nature area.
The nature area now covers half the polder and can be under water for up to 100 days per year.
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