Flood Proofing Cities

Netherlands: Problem
This image could have been taken in Katrina's wake, but it was actually captured more than a decade ago and an ocean away from Louisiana. Periodic flooding has plagued the Netherlands since the Middle Ages. Half the country, including Amsterdam and Rotterdam, lies below sea level in a drainage basin for three rivers and at the door of the North Sea. A catastrophic flood in 1953 killed nearly 2,000 people and destroyed whole villages; afterward, the Dutch vowed never again.