Dutch Water Defence Lines
Dutch Water Defence Lines
The Dutch Water Defence Lines represents a defence system extending over 200 km along the edge of the administrative and economic heartland of Holland. It is comprised of the New Dutch Waterline and the Defence Line of Amsterdam. Built between 1815 and 1940, the system consists of a network of forts, dikes, sluices, pumping stations, canals and inundation polders, working in concert to protect the Netherlands by applying the principle of temporary flooding of the land. It has been developed thanks to the special knowledge of hydraulic engineering for defence purposes held and applied by the people of the Netherlands since the 16th century. Each of the polders along the line of fortifications has its own inundation facilities.
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0
Lignes d’eau de défense hollandaises
Les lignes d’eau de défense hollandaises sont un système de défenses s’étendant sur plus de 200 km le long de la limite administrative et économique du cœur de la Hollande. Le bien comprend la Nouvelle ligne d’eau de Hollande et la Ligne de défense d’Amsterdam. Construit entre 1815 et 1940, le système comprend un réseau de forts, des digues, des écluses, des stations de pompage, des canaux et des zones d’inondation, dont l’action conjointe de protection des Pays-Bas repose sur le principe de l’inondation temporaire des terres. Les Néerlandais, détenteurs de cette technique exceptionnelle, l’ont appliquée au service de la défense du pays depuis le XVIe siècle. Les polders situés le long de la ligne de fortification ont chacun leurs propres dispositifs d’inondation.
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0
خطوط الدفاع المائية الهولندية
يمتد التعديل الهام لحدود الموقع، الذي كان قد أدرج لأول مرة في قائمة التراث في عام 1996، من بحيرة آيسل (التي كانت تُعرف سابقاً باسم زاوديرزي) الواقعة في مدينة ماودن، إلى مصب بيسبوش في فيركندام. ويقضي هذا التعديل بإضافة خط المياه الهولندي الجديد إلى موقع التراث العالمي لخط دفاع أمستردام القائم بالفعل، ليصبح الموقع يعرف باسم موقع التراث العالمي لخطوط الدفاع المائية الهولندية، ويضم التعديل كذلك الأمر عدداً من عمليات تمديد وسحب بعض الأجزاء من حدود موقع التراث لخط دفاع أمستردام. ويُبين التمديد بصفة خاصة نظاماً عسكرياً منفرداً للدفاع، حيث كان يستند إلى الفيضانات في الحقول والمنشآت الهيدروليكية، إضافة إلى سلسلة من التحصينات والمواقع العسكرية الموزعة على مساحة 85 كم. ويضم الموقع أيضاً ثلاثة عناصر أصغر حجماً، ألا وهي: حصن فيرك الرابع، وقناة تيل للفيضانات، وحصن بانيردين الواقع على مقربة من الحدود الألمانية. شُيّدت هذه المعالم في الفترة الممتدة بين عامَي 1814 و1940، وتؤدي دوراً تكميلياً مع الموقع المُدرج بالفعل، والذي يعتبر مثالاً منقطع النظير على مفهوم التحصينات القائمة على مبدأ التحكم بالمياه. وعكف سكان هولندا منذ القرن السادس عشر على تسخير ما بجعبتهم من معارف وخبرات في مجال الهندسة الهيدروليكية لأغراض الدفاع. وكان مركز المدينة محمياً بشبكة مؤلفة من 45 حصناً مدجّجاً بالأسلحة، وكانت تُشغّل بالتناغم مع الفيضانات المؤقتة في المناطق المنخفضة المستصلحة من التجمعات المائية، ونظاماً معقداً من القنوات والأهوسة.
source: UNESCO/CPE
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0
荷兰水防线
这个1996年首次被列入名录的遗产区对其边界进行了重大调整，从穆登的艾瑟尔湖 (旧称“须德海”)一直延伸到韦尔肯丹的莎草河口。这一修改将荷兰水防线的较新部分与原有世界遗产“阿姆斯特丹的防御线”融合，成为“荷兰水防线”世界遗产。此次调整还包括对原遗产区的边界的一些小的扩展和缩减，其中扩展部分特别展现了一个由低地水网、水利设施以及一系列防御工事和军事哨所组成的绵延85公里长的军事防御系统。荷兰水防线还包括3个较小的组成部分：哥伦布绿堡、蒂尔洪水运河和靠近德国边境的潘纳登堡。它们建成于1814-1940年之间，是对已经列入名录的遗产区的补充。原遗产是唯一一个以水量控制原则为基础建成的防御工事。自16世纪起，荷兰人民就把他们的水利工程专业知识用于防御目的。国家的中心部分由45个武装堡垒组成的防线保护着，这些堡垒与圩田上的蓄洪以及错综复杂的水渠和水闸系统相互配合。
source: UNESCO/CPE
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0
Голландская линия водной обороны
Существенное изменение границ объекта, впервые внесенного в Список в 1996 году, простирается от озера Эйсселмер (ранее известного как Зёйдерзе) в Мёйдене до эстуария Бисбосх в Веркендаме. Расширение территории объекта добавляет Новую голландскую ватерлинию к уже внесенному в Список всемирного наследия объекту «Линия обороны вокруг Амстердама», становясь таким образом объектом всемирного наследия «Голландская линия водной обороны», что также включает в себя ряд небольших расширений и сокращений границ объекта всемирного наследия «Линия обороны вокруг Амстердама». В частности, это расширение территории демонстрирует единую систему военной обороны, которая была основана на территории затопляемых полей, гидротехнических сооружений, а также ряда укреплений и военных постов общей площадью 85 км. Расширение также включает в себя три небольших компонента: форт Верк IV, затопленный канал Тила и форт Паннерден вблизи границы с Германией. Построенные в 1814-1940 годах, они дополняют уже включенный в Список объект, являющийся единственным примером укрепления, основанного на принципе контроля над водами. С XVI века жители Нидерландов используют свои экспертные знания в области гидротехники в оборонных целях. Центр страны был защищен сетью из 45 вооруженных фортов, действующих параллельно с польдерной системой и сложной системой каналов и шлюзов.
source: UNESCO/CPE
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0
Líneas de agua de defensa holandesas
La importante modificación de los límites del sitio inscrito por primera vez en 1996 se extiende desde el IJsselmeer (anteriormente conocido como Zuiderzee), en Muiden, hasta el estuario de Biesbosch, en Werkendam. Esta modificación añade la nueva Línea de agua holandesa al sitio del Patrimonio Mundial existente de la Línea de defensa de Ámsterdam, para convertirse en las Líneas de agua de defensa holandesas, que incluye una serie de pequeñas extensiones y reducciones de los límites del sitio del Patrimonio Mundial de la Línea de defensa de Ámsterdam. En particular, la ampliación ilustra un sistema de defensa militar único, que se basaba en terrenos de inundación, instalaciones hidráulicas y una serie de fortificaciones y puestos militares que se extendían por una superficie de 85 km. También incluye tres componentes más pequeños: Fort Werk IV, el Canal de inundación de Tiel y Fort Pannerden, cerca de la frontera alemana. Construidos entre 1814 y 1940, complementan el sitio ya inscrito, que es el único ejemplo de fortificación basada en el control de las aguas. Desde el siglo XVI, el pueblo de los Países Bajos ha utilizado sus conocimientos expertos de ingeniería hidráulica con fines defensivos. El centro del país estaba protegido por una red de 45 fuertes armados, que actuaban conjuntamente con las inundaciones temporales de los pólderes y un intrincado sistema de canales y esclusas.
source: UNESCO/CPE
Description is available under license CC-BY-SA IGO 3.0
Outstanding Universal Value
Brief synthesis
The Dutch Water Defence Lines form a complete defence system that extends over 200 km along the edge of the administrative and economic heartland of Holland, consisting of the elongated New Dutch Waterline and the Defence Line of Amsterdam defensive ring. Built between 1815 and 1940, the system consists of an ingenious network of 96 forts, acting in concert with an intricate system of dikes, sluices, pumping stations, canals and inundation polders, and is a major example of a fortification based on the principle of temporary flooding of the land. Since the 16th century, the people in the Netherlands have used their special knowledge of hydraulic engineering for defence purposes. Each of the polders along the line of fortifications has its own inundation facilities.
The water level was a critical factor in the success of the Dutch Water Defence Lines; the water had to be too deep to wade through and too shallow for boats to sail on.
Because the Dutch Water Defence Lines have continually been adapted to the development of defence techniques and knowledge of hydraulics, they offer a complete and unique insight in a 125-year period of military water management in combination with fortifications. The extraordinary consistency of the Strategically Deployed Landscape, Water Management System, and Military Fortifications is still clearly visible. The New Dutch Waterline contains well-preserved, extraordinary water management structures, including the first fan sluice, a type of sluice that was later used worldwide. The Defence Line of Amsterdam includes forts that have an important place in the development of military engineering worldwide: they mark the shift from the conspicuous brick/stone casemated forts of the Montalembert tradition, in favour of the steel and concrete structures that were to be brought to their highest level of sophistication in the Maginot and Atlantic Wall fortifications. The combination of fixed positions with the deployment of mobile artillery to the intervals between the forts was also advanced in its application.
Criterion (ii): The Dutch Water Defence Lines are an illustration of an extensive integrated European defence system of the modern period which survived intact and well conserved since their creation in the beginning of the 19th century. They are part of a continuum of defensive measures that both preceded their construction and were later to influence some portions of them immediately before and after World War II.
Criterion (iv): The Dutch Water Defence Lines are an outstanding example of an extensive and ingenious system of military defence by inundation, that uses features and elements of the country’s landscape. The well-preserved collection of fortifications in the context of the surrounding landscape is unique in the European history of military architecture. The forts illustrate the development of military architecture between 1815 and 1940, in particular the transition from brick construction to the use of reinforced concrete in the Defence Line of Amsterdam. This transition, with its experiments in the use of concrete and emphasis on the use of non-reinforced concrete, is an episode in the history of European architecture of which material remains are only rarely preserved.
Criterion (v): The Dutch Water Defence Lines form an extraordinary example of the Dutch expertise in landscape design and hydraulic engineering. They are notable for the unique way in which hydraulic engineering has been incorporated into the defences of the administrative and economic heartland of the country, including the nation’s capital city.
Integrity
The Dutch Water Defence Lines and their individual attributes are a complete, integrated defence system. They have not been used for military purposes since World War II and are formally out of operation since 1963. The characteristic openness of the inundation fields is preserved integrally in the parts of the Dutch Water Defence Lines where the pressure of spatial development was low after its military use has ended. The strategically deployed landscape is still well visible, but its extension is notably reduced and its degree of integrity is uneven. Especially, but not only, on the inner side of the defence lines, urban growth has often overwhelmed rurality and the visual relationships between the forts and the environment have been undermined. On the outer side, the side watched over by the forts, some new developments have occurred, and scattered buildings and groups of trees have modified the aspect of the landscape and the visibility of the “Prohibited Circles”.
The series of forts, batteries and ramparts make up a group of connected buildings in which the consecutive phases of military architecture are clearly recognisable. The range of hydraulic works and the military fortifications that supported the inundation system is a complete and mostly preserved entity, in mutual connection and in relation to the landscape. The water management system (a complex network of canals, dikes, gates, sluices) is still in use and its maintenance is assured as far as it is necessary for the safety of large cultivated and inhabited areas.
However, new developments and large infrastructures have already impacted upon the western portion of the Defence Line of Amsterdam, in the central portion of the New Dutch Waterline, and at the junction between the two, next to the cities of Amsterdam, Haarlem and Utrecht. There, fortifications, related ditches, canals and dikes have been preserved but the landscape has significantly changed, and several inundation fields are no longer as clearly recognisable as elsewhere. Nowadays these portions of the property are exposed to strong pressure for further transformation.
The effectiveness of the current actions of care and maintenance along with strengthened planning policies can secure the integrity of the property.
Authenticity
The Dutch Water Defence Lines still form a coherent human-made landscape, one in which natural elements such as water and soil have been incorporated into a built system of engineering works, creating a clearly defined military landscape. The military use has been terminated, but the landscape and built attributes are still present.
The physical attributes of the Dutch Water Defence Lines credibly reflect the Outstanding Universal Value through their form and design (the typology of forts, sluices, batteries, line ramparts), the specific use of building materials (brick, non-reinforced concrete, reinforced concrete), the workmanship (meticulous construction apparent in its constructional condition and flawlessness), and their reciprocal interrelations and relationships with the landscape setting (as an interconnected military functional system in the manmade landscape of the polders and the urbanised landscape). Although the military use and defence function have ceased, the primary agricultural use of the landscape has been retained alongside the introduction of recreational use.
Several sources exist that can demonstrate the authenticity of the property, including bibliographical and archival sources. The physical attributes reflect the values and the historic development of the property. Since the 1990s, maintenance, restorations and repurposing of the forts have contributed to maintaining near the main military structures the spirit of the military past of the defence line territory and made possible their sustainable use and access to the public. The military history remains tangible, because the story of the Dutch Water Defence Lines continues to be told in the area and through various media. However, the modifications to the landscape and the developments have, in some zones, reduced conditions of authenticity.
Protection and management requirements
The legal framework for spatial planning, including landscape and heritage protection, is under reform in the Netherlands. From 01-01-2024, this new law will apply. The new Environment and Planning Act will more strongly and explicitly protect World Heritage.
Currently, World Heritage properties’ attributes and Outstanding Universal Value are given consideration at all national, provincial and local levels through the provisions of the Spatial Planning (General Rules) Decree, Dutch acronym Barro, issued in 2011, which identifies core qualities of the properties inscribed on the World Heritage List or included in the Tentative List. These qualities must be maintained or enhanced in plans and spatial developments. Specific rules from the Spatial Planning Decree stipulates that municipalities must consider cultural history when elaborating spatial plans.
The Barro provisions will be incorporated into the new Environment and Planning Act (01-01-2024), which stipulates that regulations for the preservation of the Outstanding Universal Value of World Heritage properties and the implementation of the World Heritage Convention must be developed.
In addition, all structures of the New Dutch Waterline are protected as nationally listed buildings, and the connection with the landscape is also protected through clustering of these structures. A number of built attributes of the Defence Line of Amsterdam are also protected as nationally listed buildings; the remaining built attributes in the Defence Line of Amsterdam are protected as provincially listed buildings. In all these cases, there is a licensing requirement for architectural and spatial planning developments for urban conservation areas, which is linked to the preservation of the monumental character, thereby complementing the protection afforded to individual heritage structures.
Further protection regimes afford protection to the setting of the Dutch Water Defence Lines. The municipal zoning plan has a legally binding force and is the key instrument for implementing protective measures.
Provinces are responsible for describing the ‘core qualities’ of existing or proposed World Heritage properties and for developing rules for their preservation. These rules are included in provincial by-laws and municipal zoning plans. The government and the provinces have the right to prepare government-imposed zoning plan amendments, as long as national or provincial interest is at stake, such as in the case of World Heritage or heritage preservation. These amendments have the same legal value as municipal zoning plans.
The rural zoning plan is the central instrument for the protection of the agricultural land and therefore of the inundation fields. Provincial by-laws prevent construction outside building locations identified by provinces, and agricultural land cannot be turned into buildable land. The application of sustainability principles also requires that urban developments must occur in existing urban areas. The necessity to deviate from this principle must be explicitly demonstrated.
Recommendations from independent experts are structurally enshrined in the process, both on the level of the World Heritage Site (spatial quality advisory team), the provincial level (provincial spatial quality advisor), and the local level (building aesthetics committee and listed buildings committee). Large-scale initiatives with a potentially large impact are subjected to a Heritage Impact Assessment. A strategic HIA of the relation to the World Heritage site is carried out in the case of potentially far-reaching developments, such as energy transition.
For highly dynamic areas it is key that the capacity of the property to accommodate potential developments is assessed through focused area analyses defining the specific conditions and locations for development that can support or enhance the integrity of the property and where this might pose challenges.
As per the Joint Arrangements Act, the four provinces of Noord–Holland, Gelderland, Noord-Brabant and Utrecht have signed a partnership agreement that establishes they act jointly as the site-holder through a single overarching management office covering the entirety of the Dutch Water Defence Lines. A small portion of the property falls within the Province of Zuid-Holland. The five provinces have agreed that the four provinces where the majority of the property is located look after the small section in Zuid-Holland. However, the Province of Zuid-Holland continues to perform its spatial-planning and protection tasks.
The site–holder office is managed by the four provinces under the direction of an independent Chair, with a representative of the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands as an advisor. The site-holder relies on the human resources of the Knowledge Centre of the waterlines, the independent Spatial Quality Advisory team. External support is also provided by the Cross-Waterline Entrepreneurship Foundation, which supports entrepreneurs in and around the property. The think tank Line Expert Team – 16 experts in 8 different subjects – is supported by two Provinces and offers expertise and advice to owners, managers and operators, including municipalities and water authorities.
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