Environmental History of the Rhine-Meuse Delta - An ecological story on evolving human-environmental relations coping with climate change and sea-level rise

This book presents the environmental history of the Delta of the lowland rivers Rhine and Meuse, an ecological story on evolving human-environmental relations coping with climate change and sea-level rise. It offers a combination of in depth ecology and environmental history, dealing with exploitation of land and water, the use of everything nature provided, the development of fisheries and agriculture, changes in biodiversity of higher plants, fish, birds, mammals, and invasive exotics. 

The book is unique: it is the first book written in English on the integrated environmental history of the Delta, from pre-historic times up to the present day. It covers the legacy of human intervention, the inescapable fate of reclaimed, nevertheless subsiding and sinking polders, ‘bathtubs’ attacked by numerous floods, reclaimed in the Middle Ages and unwittingly exposed to the rising sea-level and the increased amplitude between high and low water in the rivers.