I used to work with Dutch people who like to tell that “God made the world, the Dutch made the Netherlands.” I corrected them, saying they made a lot more than that: I grew up on an island in France that was under the control of Dutch merchants in the XVIIth century; they built a levy to double the amount of dry land. There’s polders like that everywhere.

The levy has been fine for the last four centuries, but local engineers were thinking of raising it. For that, they might need someone to help them translate the original blueprint. I once joked about deciphering it when talking to another Dutch friend on mine. She’s close to the Royal family and I was curious possibly needing asking Historian for help. She didn’t seem surprised at all. Apparently a lot of Dutch diplomacy, to this day, is sharing that expertise and that unique, century-long, perspective. The King is a hydrological engineer (and a commercial pilot) and has lead international projects.

The techniques and examples are pretty much ideas tested centuries ago, with the occasional minor adjustment like: windmills with Archimedes screw can be marginally improved if you use wind power and electric pumps. I’m sure someone on one of those projects has had to joke “Grand-grand-papa wasn’t a big believer in ballast. It was a new idea then. But we can try this time.”