One-third of all major floods recorded in the Netherlands over the past 500 years were caused deliberately by humans to defend the territory during wartime.
Adriaan de Kraker of Free University Amsterdam trawled historical maps, land ownership documents and written accounts of flooding events in the low-lying southwest Netherlands, where three rivers flow into the North Sea. The largest floods occurred either during storm surges when sea water breached the flood defences, or during wartime when people destroyed dikes to deter enemies such as the Spanish in the sixteenth century. The tactic was also used by both sides during the Second World War (pictured are residents of Walcheren being rescued from floods in 1945, after a sea wall was breached). Strategic flooding was not always successful in deterring the enemy, de Kraker says, and caused as much damage to land and property as natural floods did.
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Floods used as defensive weapons. Nature 522, 258 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/522258a
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/522258a
