Flood bariers

Flood bariers:
Flood bariers protect people against the water. There are numerous enormous flood bariers build in the world. The largest movable one is found in Rotterdam The Netherlands. This barier is called the Maeslantkering and is placed in the Nieuwe Waterweg waterway. It is part of the Delta Works and it is one of largest moving structures on Earth rivalling with the Green Bank Telescope in the USA and the Bagger 288 excavator in Germany.


The world's second largest movable flood barrier is the Thames barier in london ( birdview ). Located downstream of central London, the barrier's purpose is to prevent London from being flooded by an exceptionally high tide moving up from the sea, often exacerbated by a storm surge.
London is a city quite susceptible to flooding. This is caused by the continual rise in the water level of the River Thames throughout the years, slow tilting of Britain because ice sheets from the ice age slowly lift land in the North, and the settlement of London on clay beds.


The biggest non movable flood barier in the world is found in Sint Petersburg in Russia. This new Flood Protection Project barrier has a length of ca 25km and is the largest and most complex flood protection project in the world: six sluice complexes, a tunnel, a movable bridge, 23km of dams and two closable openings for shipping traffic, one of which is based on the Dutch Rotterdam Storm Surge Barier described above.

Another major flood barrier is found in the Netherlands. In the past 2000 years, The Netherlands has known many flood disasters. The main cause is the low position of the country compared to sea levels. To prefend te country from flooding the Deltaworks were constructed. From these constructions the Oosterscheldkering is the biggest and also is the second biggest storm barrier in the world. In 1986 the queen officially opened the barrier, containing 62 openings of 40 metres wide which can be closed when needed.