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All is not lost: Dutch building artificial islands in a lake to bring wildlife back
News:
The Netherlands has come up with the ingenious solution of building a string of new islands in Markermeer Lake.
Facts:
- The newly opened island, one of five created in the Markermeer as part of the Netherlands-based Marker Wadden rewilding project, attracted crowds of nature lovers by creating new habitat and improving water quality, the project is reconnecting people with wild nature and boosting biodiversity.
- The project, initiated by Natuurmonumenten, a Dutch nongovernmental organisation working for the preservation of nature,
- The Dutch used an innovative technique, forming the islets with silt, a sedimentary formation halfway between clay and sand.
- It is “one of the largest rewilding operations in Europe
Rewilding – is large-scale conservation aimed at restoring and protecting natural processes and core wilderness areas, providing connectivity between such areas, and protecting or reintroducing apex predators and keystone species)
Dredgers – Dredging is a displacement of soil, carried out under water. It serves several different purposes. One of the applications meets the need to maintain minimum depths in canals and harbors by removing mud, sludge, gravel and rocks.
Dredgers – Dredging is a displacement of soil, carried out under water. It serves several different purposes. One of the applications meets the need to maintain minimum depths in canals and harbors by removing mud, sludge, gravel and rocks.
About Markermeer Lake
- One of the largest freshwater lakes in western Europe, It used to be part of the Zuiderzee, a saltwater inlet of the North Sea, which was dammed off in 1932.
- Following the abandonment of a land reclamation project in the 1980s, the Markermeer became a valuable ecological and recreational asset.
- Unfortunately, the biodiversity of Markermeer has declined drastically over the last few decades. Due to the separation of the lake by dykes,
- Sediment which was once carried away on currents now falls to the bottom of the lake, making the water turbid and negatively impacting fish and bird populations, as well as plants and mollusks.
Significance:
- Solving the problem of siltation by changing water dynamics and creating deeper gullies where suspended silt can settle out
- Improved water quality is benefitting many species of birds, fish and macro fauna by boosting ecological productivity, as well as those involved in recreational activities on the Markermeer.
- The scheme created an inland lake and polders, land reclaimed from the sea.
- Explosion of plankton guarantees a large amount of food for the birds.
- Greylag goose, common tern, several species of waders such as the great egret and the night heron have also returned,
- In the distance a dredger is helping to create the final dunes of the archipelago.
