> Willow wood becomes rock-hard underwater and almost doesn’t deteriorate. Research in the late 1960s showed that most fascine mattresses submerged for more than 100 years — some dating from the early 1820s — remained intact.<p>> Unlike most other tree species, willow tolerates saltwater and (temporarily) wet feet. As such, the coppice plantations could use land that was not suitable for agriculture.<p>> On impoverished soils, the Dutch planted alder trees between the willow trees. The falling leaves of the alder fertilised the soils and increased the lifespan and production of the willow trees.<p>Building long-lasting critical infrastructure using locally-sourced, carbon-negative resources! I have no idea about dykes specifically but I suspect today someone pitching a public works project based on woven willow would be laughed at -- and instead we would insist on pouring some reinforced concrete, using carbon-intensive cement, and it would begin falling apart from rusted rebar in 15 years.
> Between 1954 and 1967, during works on the rivers throughout the country, they sank 1,200,000 km2 fascine mattresses to the bottom.<p>I have trouble squaring that with all of the Netherlands measuring only 41,543 km2, with rivers making up only a tiny fraction of that.<p>Perhaps conversion from 1,200,000,000 m2 was off by a factor of 1000, and they mean 1,200 km2 ?
Was wondering what was up with the battery icon and the reddish warm overlay but I continued reading. At some point it started burning through my eyes and tapped the battery:<p>“This website runs on a solar powered server located in Barcelona, and will go off-line during longer periods of bad weather. This page shows live data relating to power supply, power demand, and energy storage.
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This is fascinating. Worth noting that there appear to be still companies doing this today: <a href="https://www.vanaalsburgbv.nl/en/zinkstuk/" rel="nofollow">https://www.vanaalsburgbv.nl/en/zinkstuk/</a>
Enjoyable read overall. Always fascinating to see the human ingenuity involved in problem solving. I might have missed it in the article, but how do the fascine mattresses do the work of helping keep back the sea? By breaking up waves before they reach the shore?
The battery indicator is neat, but it's distracting when it's covering the whole page. Maybe couple ch of width in a sidebar would be easier.
I wonder if this is the reason the Dutch (still) like to cut the tops off of willow trees every year or few. Just as the trees are starting to look great, a crew will show up and cut off all the branches, leaving a big fat nub on top of the trunk. And next year, it's grown back.<p>I do understand that with some of these trees, they can grow so big and so wide that the tree will split and possibly die (although there are some enormous trees still living with just partial shells of a trunk and no core).
Meta: Interesting that a site called "low tech magazine" also appears to use "low tech" black/white dithered images... But I imagine it's a style choice.