Beemster: Farmland That Still Needs Pumps

In the Beemster polder in the Netherlands, cows graze and crops grow on ground that was once a lake. This land was reclaimed, or made usable by removing water. A polder is a low area surrounded by dikes, barriers that help keep outside water out. Creating farmland here required two kinds of work: draining the lake and then managing water day after day.

Making Room for Fields

During the early 1600s, workers built a ring dike around Beemster Lake and dug a canal outside it. The dike separated the lake from surrounding water. Windmills powered pumps that lifted lake water into the canal, which carried it away. Wind supplied energy, but the pumps did the lifting. By 1612, the lake had been drained. The project did not bring in mountains of soil to build new ground. Instead, it uncovered a lake bottom that had been hidden beneath water.

The exposed clay soil could become fertile farmland, able to support healthy crops, but it was not ready immediately. Workers dug drainage ditches to carry extra water away from the fields. Roads, fields, and waterways were laid out in a careful grid. This organized pattern helped people reach their land and manage drainage. Turning a wet lake bottom into useful farmland took planning as well as pumping.

A Water System, Not a One-Time Job

The ring dike did not stop rain from falling inside the polder. Water also entered through seepage, the slow movement of water through soil or beneath a barrier. Because the land lies below the surrounding water level, this extra water cannot simply flow uphill and out. Ditches collect it and lead it toward larger waterways. Pumping stations lift it out of the polder. Today, electric pumps do work once performed by wind-powered pumps. Without ongoing drainage, the fields would gradually become too wet to use.

Imagine a diagram showing a slice through the landscape. A low field appears on one side of a dike, and a higher canal appears on the other. Arrows follow water from a field ditch to a pump and then up into the canal. The caption could read, 'Pumps lift water that cannot drain away by itself.' The dike and pump have different jobs.

Water managers regulate, or adjust, the water level rather than trying to remove every drop. Roots need water, but saturated soil, with its spaces filled with water, leaves too little air for many crops' roots. During wet periods, managers may pump more water out. During dry periods, they may retain water or let suitable fresh water in. They also inspect dikes and maintain equipment. Their goal is a useful balance, not the driest possible field.

Beemster shows that creating land and caring for it are connected but different achievements. Dikes and pumps first made a lake bottom available for farming. A continuing system of drainage, checks, and water-level decisions keeps that farmland useful. The harvest depends on work that does not end when the lake disappears.