Land reclamation is the process of making uncultivated, waste or waterlogged ground fit for agriculture or building. Depending on the starting point that means clearing woodland, draining wet ground by embanking and pumping, or improving poor sandy soils. The field pattern created by a reclamation is often still legible in the landscape and on the map centuries later.
Historical development
- Early reclamation — small in scale, from the moment people settled and wanted to grow crops
- From the tenth century — larger-scale work, with systematic reclamation of the peat districts in the Low Countries from around 1100. From a base line — a road or a canal — long narrow strips were dug into the peat, producing the characteristic strip landscapes
- Seventeenth to nineteenth century — the great lake drainage schemes, first using wind power (Beemster, Schermer) and later steam power (Haarlemmermeer)
- Nineteenth and twentieth century — heathland, drift sand and raised bog were converted to farmland on a large scale, helped by the arrival of artificial fertiliser
Why it matters for building
Anyone building or altering in a reclaimed area is dealing directly with this history:
- Reclaimed peat keeps settling. Drained peat oxidises and compresses, and the ground is still subsiding today. That explains the leaning and foundation problems of much older building stock in low-lying districts
- Drained lake beds sit low and often have a high water table, calling for extra attention to tanked basements, drainage and founding depth
- Heathland reclamations on sand generally have good bearing capacity and good permeability — favourable for foundations and for soakaways
- Clearance without aftercare can lead to impoverished soil, drift sand or erosion; on slopes it produces mudflows
> For any building project, have the ground investigated on site rather than relying on what the neighbours did. In reclaimed landscapes the subsoil can change markedly over a few tens of metres.
Related terms
- Polder
- Drainage
- Peat
- Consolidation
- Settlement
- Site investigation
- Water table
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