The Netherlands is locked in a permanent struggle for survival. Large areas lie below sea level. Half of the Netherlands would be flooded if it were not for the lines of defenses that has been built over the centuries and the equipment to pump ground water and river water out of the lowlying polders. After the Nord Sea flood of 1953, a commission was installated which had to come up with a plan to research the causes and seek measures to prevent such disasters in future.

The Delta Works are a series of constructions built between 1950 and 1997 in the southwest of the Netherlands to protect a large area of land around the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta from the sea. The works consist of dams, sluices, dikes and storm surge barriers. The aim of the dams, sluices, and storm surge barriers was to shorten the Dutch coastline. Along with the Zuiderzee Works (afsluitdijk), they have been declared one of the Seven Wondors of the Modern World.