Floods Deltaworks Water Nature Recreation Extra

• What is water?
• Water use
• Waterways
• Ports
• The port of Rotterdam
• Fishing
• Inland waterway shipping
• Rivers and lakes
• Drinking water
• Irrigation
• Sewage treatment
• Water management

• Deltawerken Online wordt mede gemaakt door:

  
  
  
  
  
  

The port of Rotterdam

The major advantage of the port of Rotterdam is its central location in Europe. The port is located at the actively-sailed North Sea. Germany and other European countries are within arm’s reach by means of the river Rhine. In a port the size of Rotterdam, everything is on a large scale. Every year, 30,000 ships cast anchor and deliver approximately 280 million tonnes of products. Products that are often shipped include chemicals, fruit, grain, coal, ores, oil, fodder and fertiliser. Six containers containing six hundred tons of goods in each arrive at the port every minute! Processing all these products takes so much work, that 70,000 people are employed in this middle-sized city. About ten percent of the Dutch Gross National Product is earned in the port of Rotterdam. This means that without this port, people would earn on average ten percent less than they do now.

A lot of space is required in order for the biggest ships to cast anchor. Since the Netherlands is one of the most densely-populated countries in the world, it is often difficult to balance for instance economic and nature interests. Initially, space was found in the mouth in front of the Rozenburg coast. Since the port has dominated the area many things have changed. In the book ‘de Jacobsladder’ (Jacob’s ladder), Dutch writer Maarten ‘t Hart writes about the original beauty of the area before bulldozers flattened everything. Farms, villages and nature reserves (such as ‘de Beer’) had to make way for the port. The port grew so fast, that there was structurally a lack of space. In the 1960s' it was decided to expand the port westwards, into the sea. 420 million cubic metres of sand were required to create the artificial plain ‘de Maasvlakte’. Recently, the second Maasvlakte, which lies even further seawards, was created. The Dutch shoreline is therefore interrupted by the ‘bulge’ of the protruding Maasvlaktes near the city of Rotterdam.