4 ms·

The Dutch community where people live on strips of land in a lake

142 points by Bowes-Lyon 2mo ago

yieldcrv 2mo ago
I googled peat so you dont have to Peat is a soft, spongy material made from dead plants that did not fully rot. It forms very slowly in wet, swampy places called bogs It is used as fuel as well as fertilizer
- clickety_clack 2mo ago
  It usually holds many times its solid weight in water. If you add load to it by building something on it (without designing around the ground conditions) it can compress to a fraction of its volume, resulting in ground settlements that can be very large.
- mistrial9 2mo ago
  pre-industrial peoples in some parts of the world used this material extensively.. some still do
  - yieldcrv 2mo ago
    I’ve started referring to the industrialized majority as peoples too “the South of Market peoples”
- _puk 2mo ago
  It is also a fantastic carbon sink. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/21/headway/peat-carbon-climate-change.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/21/headway/peat-... "Although peatlands make up just 3 percent of land on Earth, they store twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests combined." Nice it was historically just dug up and the leftovers turned into expensive holiday homes.
  - psjs 2mo ago
    If you add enough heat, pressure and (geological) time it becomes coal!
  - arjie 2mo ago
    Unfortunately the reverse is also true: polderization and exposing the peat to the air reverses that sink process. Single digit percentage of Dutch greenhouse emissions come from this. Fortunately, they are depolderizing and hopefully much of the Netherlands is given back to the sea so that environmental interests are preserved.
  - mcv 2mo ago
    It takes a very long time to form, however. It's mostly another source of carbon that gets added to the atmosphere.
- al_borland 2mo ago
  It is also used to give whisky a smokey taste.
- culi 2mo ago
  Anybody whose done any amount of gardening or has houseplants is probably familiar with peat. Though its harvest is destructive to the unique peat bog environments it forms
  - zulux 2mo ago
    There's a huge push to go peat-free, and I agree 95%. There are just a few uses for peat that don't have an alternative. I mention this to fellow gardeners because if you go 100% peat-free, you'll end up with an expensive disaster and, out of frustration, may go back to peat entirely. I think it's not productive to ignore the small corner cases where peat is almost a requirement.
    - culi 2mo ago
      Say more? I've heard coconut coir can sometimes contain salt and has less nutrients but that can be fixed by buying properly processed coir and mixing in something like finished compost. What's irreplaceable about peat?
      - zulux 1mo ago
        My observation: Some starts just seem to need peat during germination, and that's sort of a hard requirement. While a lot of things just need better-draining soil (Coir, perlite, etc.), some very slow-germinating but delicate things just don't work well at all without peat. By the time they're starting to sprout, the peat-free alternatives are full of algae and basically rotting. Thankfully, the use cases are small - I have 20lbs of peat, and it's seen me through about four years and is still half full.
- retired 2mo ago
  Can also be used to build a home. Up to 1940 that is how the lowest class in The Netherlands lived. Plaggenhutten, homes made out of peat, straw, manure.
  - g8oz 2mo ago
    Likely very comfortable on a thermal basis.
- dlcarrier 2mo ago
  Next, google "bog butter" to see one of their more interesting uses.
- mcv 2mo ago
  Most of Netherland used to be peat, but there's almost nothing left now. From about the 10th century onward, it's slowly all been turned into farmland or lakes. Sometimes both. This is the process that really created the country, both geographically and politically.
  - RetroTechie 2mo ago
    Some areas used to be strips of water / land, but too much peat was dug out, storms washed the remaining land strips into the water beside it, creating a regular lake. For example some lakes in Giethoorn area were formed like this. Like most lakes in the NL these tend to be shallow (~1.5-2m depth is common, even the biggest lake -Ijsselmeer- is only about 5..6m in deepest areas).
    - mcv 2mo ago
      Ijsselmeer is a different kind of lake; not created by digging out peat, but a (violent) sea inlet that was closed off. The many peat lakes didn't start out as strips of land, but as endless peat swamp. Much of that was drained through drainage ditches and turned into agricultural land. Other parts were dug up for fuel, creating those massive lakes. In the latter case, they sometimes left those strips of land to transport the fuel.
      - RetroTechie 2mo ago
        > Ijsselmeer is a different kind of lake; not created by digging out peat, but a (violent) sea inlet that was closed off. Hmm yes, 'everybody' in the NL is aware of that. > In the latter case, they sometimes left those strips of land to transport the fuel. Not really. The turf blocks would be stacked in piles & left to dry for a while. But then often transported by boat (through the newly created channels). The leftover strips of land could be used to have men, or a horse, pull such boats on a rope.
lefra 2mo ago
Obnoxious cookie banner with no "reject all" button. Too bad, it sounded interesting.
- clickety_clack 2mo ago
  Isn’t that actually illegal under GDPR? There’s a reason all the other sites allow you to opt out and it’s not because they want to do that.
  - CalRobert 2mo ago
    Violating gdpr is apparently legal. But even having opt out instead of opt in is in violation
  - retired 2mo ago
    Yes. But it is not enforced. The largest Dutch tech website is not GDPR compliant.
  - dlcarrier 2mo ago
    Core77 doesn't do any business in the EU, so it probably isn't a concern. There's a few states in the US with cookie banner requirements, so it was probably designed around that.
  - flexagoon 2mo ago
    Good luck trying to get the cookie laws enforced in any way. The Dutch DPA, for example, only lets you submit a GDPR complaint and get a response on things that directly relate to your own data. Otherwise, you can only submit a "tip-off" that they'll "review" but won't respond to. GDPR/ePD also requires "reject all" to be a single button, and asking the user to click a billion separate "reject" toggles is against the law, but many sites don't care.
- pwg 2mo ago
  With UblockOrigin blocking all Javascript by default there was no cookie banner, just the article and photographs.
Deukhoofd 2mo ago
I wonder how they're doing right now with water levels reaching critical low points.
- t0mas88 2mo ago
  Water levels in this area are tightly managed by pumps. Also in normal times they pump water in and out to keep a specific level. All of this is lower than the Amsterdamrijnkanaal, so without pumps it would flood, water doesn't naturally flow out of this place only from evaporation.
t0mas88 2mo ago
People don't really live there, these are holiday/recreational homes. My family owns two of those islands with a holiday home. Typically you use them for the weekend. My mom for example lives in a busy city and has a small garden, she uses the holiday home as a weekend getaway and a place to keep the sailing boat. The Netherlands are small and this area is very central, about 20 minutes drive from Amsterdam or Utrecht. So most owners use it in the same way.
- sundache 2mo ago
  You're not allowed to live there officially, but some people do.
  - t0mas88 2mo ago
    Yes but those mostly live landside, there are holiday homes at the edge of the lake as well. There was a plan to allow permanent use, but I think it now changed to only allowing it for people that already live there and no new cases.
    - CalRobert 2mo ago
      Seems a shame in a housing crisis.
      - retired 2mo ago
        There is a reason for it. Infrastructure, access roads, public transit stops, build quality, utilities. The Netherlands has very high standards for homes and the direct surroundings and these homes do not meet those criteria. You would also have significantly more emissions if people started living there which would go against the emission limits for nearby nature.
      - analog31 2mo ago
        Let me guess, no sewage disposal.
DivingForGold 2mo ago
I read these properties are actually some of the most expensive properties in The Netherlands ($ million dollar). But no electricity (need generator) and you cannot drive your car to your lakehouse. Plus, I bet the mosquitos are horrible, it is a former swamp.
- retired 2mo ago
  Easily over a million for the ones without neighbors. The most expensive one was listed for 13 million. These are holiday homes for wealthy elites in Amsterdam. You either go there straight from Amsterdam by helicopter or you have a chauffeur drive/boat you there. These people don’t drive themselves. But probably not for long with non-primary real estate being taxed at 2.2% a year.
  - gield 2mo ago
    > The most expensive one was listed for 13 million. This one [1]? It's a huge villa (not on an island) plus 2 islands for that price, so not really comparable. I found a more representative example of an island with a house that is currently for sale [2]. It is listed for €1.5 million. [1] https://www.quotenet.nl/vastgoed/qasteel/a62799798/joop-drechsel-euro1375-miljoen-villa-2-eilandjes https://www.quotenet.nl/vastgoed/qasteel/a62799798/joop-drec... [2] https://www.funda.nl/detail/koop/loosdrecht/huis-drecht-16/44407652 https://www.funda.nl/detail/koop/loosdrecht/huis-drecht-16/4...
    - retired 2mo ago
      Found another one at 8 million and is on an island: https://www.quotenet.nl/vastgoed/qasteel/a62814634/luxueus-plaspaleis-in-lovely-loosdrecht-kost-euro8-miljoen/ https://www.quotenet.nl/vastgoed/qasteel/a62814634/luxueus-p... This was in 2024 so likely valued around 9 million by now. The home you listed at Funda comes in at €42000 per square meter which is unheard of for The Netherlands. Not even Amsterdam Center comes close. These homes are one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in the country.
    - Scarblac 2mo ago
nsm 2mo ago
Is this area the inspiration for the Gyptians in The Golden Compass?
tromp 2mo ago
You may find this area on google maps at https://www.google.com/maps/@52.1792241,5.0288801,516m https://www.google.com/maps/@52.1792241,5.0288801,516m
AnodicElegy 2mo ago
Looks lovely. I wonder if it has good fishing.
- t0mas88 2mo ago
  With a boat, as far as I know the sides aren't good fishing spots. There is a website about it: https://www.vissenoploosdrecht.nl/fotos/ https://www.vissenoploosdrecht.nl/fotos/
robotnikman 2mo ago
I wish I could live there, seems like the perfect spot.
calmworm 2mo ago
Ahh, the Netherlands… strips of land through their water and strips of water through their land…

142 points by Bowes-Lyon 2mo ago

I googled peat so you dont have to Peat is a soft, spongy material made from dead plants that did not fully rot. It forms very slowly in wet, swampy places called bogs It is used as fuel as well as fertilizer

clickety_clack 2mo ago
It usually holds many times its solid weight in water. If you add load to it by building something on it (without designing around the ground conditions) it can compress to a fraction of its volume, resulting in ground settlements that can be very large.
mistrial9 2mo ago
pre-industrial peoples in some parts of the world used this material extensively.. some still do
- yieldcrv 2mo ago
  I’ve started referring to the industrialized majority as peoples too “the South of Market peoples”
_puk 2mo ago
It is also a fantastic carbon sink. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/21/headway/peat-carbon-climate-change.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/02/21/headway/peat-... "Although peatlands make up just 3 percent of land on Earth, they store twice as much carbon as all the world’s forests combined." Nice it was historically just dug up and the leftovers turned into expensive holiday homes.
- psjs 2mo ago
  If you add enough heat, pressure and (geological) time it becomes coal!
- arjie 2mo ago
  Unfortunately the reverse is also true: polderization and exposing the peat to the air reverses that sink process. Single digit percentage of Dutch greenhouse emissions come from this. Fortunately, they are depolderizing and hopefully much of the Netherlands is given back to the sea so that environmental interests are preserved.
- mcv 2mo ago
  It takes a very long time to form, however. It's mostly another source of carbon that gets added to the atmosphere.
al_borland 2mo ago
It is also used to give whisky a smokey taste.
culi 2mo ago
Anybody whose done any amount of gardening or has houseplants is probably familiar with peat. Though its harvest is destructive to the unique peat bog environments it forms
- zulux 2mo ago
  There's a huge push to go peat-free, and I agree 95%. There are just a few uses for peat that don't have an alternative. I mention this to fellow gardeners because if you go 100% peat-free, you'll end up with an expensive disaster and, out of frustration, may go back to peat entirely. I think it's not productive to ignore the small corner cases where peat is almost a requirement.
  - culi 2mo ago
    Say more? I've heard coconut coir can sometimes contain salt and has less nutrients but that can be fixed by buying properly processed coir and mixing in something like finished compost. What's irreplaceable about peat?
    - zulux 1mo ago
      My observation: Some starts just seem to need peat during germination, and that's sort of a hard requirement. While a lot of things just need better-draining soil (Coir, perlite, etc.), some very slow-germinating but delicate things just don't work well at all without peat. By the time they're starting to sprout, the peat-free alternatives are full of algae and basically rotting. Thankfully, the use cases are small - I have 20lbs of peat, and it's seen me through about four years and is still half full.
retired 2mo ago
Can also be used to build a home. Up to 1940 that is how the lowest class in The Netherlands lived. Plaggenhutten, homes made out of peat, straw, manure.
- g8oz 2mo ago
  Likely very comfortable on a thermal basis.
dlcarrier 2mo ago
Next, google "bog butter" to see one of their more interesting uses.
mcv 2mo ago
Most of Netherland used to be peat, but there's almost nothing left now. From about the 10th century onward, it's slowly all been turned into farmland or lakes. Sometimes both. This is the process that really created the country, both geographically and politically.
- RetroTechie 2mo ago
  Some areas used to be strips of water / land, but too much peat was dug out, storms washed the remaining land strips into the water beside it, creating a regular lake. For example some lakes in Giethoorn area were formed like this. Like most lakes in the NL these tend to be shallow (~1.5-2m depth is common, even the biggest lake -Ijsselmeer- is only about 5..6m in deepest areas).
  - mcv 2mo ago
    Ijsselmeer is a different kind of lake; not created by digging out peat, but a (violent) sea inlet that was closed off. The many peat lakes didn't start out as strips of land, but as endless peat swamp. Much of that was drained through drainage ditches and turned into agricultural land. Other parts were dug up for fuel, creating those massive lakes. In the latter case, they sometimes left those strips of land to transport the fuel.
    - RetroTechie 2mo ago
      > Ijsselmeer is a different kind of lake; not created by digging out peat, but a (violent) sea inlet that was closed off. Hmm yes, 'everybody' in the NL is aware of that. > In the latter case, they sometimes left those strips of land to transport the fuel. Not really. The turf blocks would be stacked in piles & left to dry for a while. But then often transported by boat (through the newly created channels). The leftover strips of land could be used to have men, or a horse, pull such boats on a rope.

lefra 2mo ago

Obnoxious cookie banner with no "reject all" button. Too bad, it sounded interesting.

clickety_clack 2mo ago
Isn’t that actually illegal under GDPR? There’s a reason all the other sites allow you to opt out and it’s not because they want to do that.
- CalRobert 2mo ago
  Violating gdpr is apparently legal. But even having opt out instead of opt in is in violation
- retired 2mo ago
  Yes. But it is not enforced. The largest Dutch tech website is not GDPR compliant.
- dlcarrier 2mo ago
  Core77 doesn't do any business in the EU, so it probably isn't a concern. There's a few states in the US with cookie banner requirements, so it was probably designed around that.
- flexagoon 2mo ago
  Good luck trying to get the cookie laws enforced in any way. The Dutch DPA, for example, only lets you submit a GDPR complaint and get a response on things that directly relate to your own data. Otherwise, you can only submit a "tip-off" that they'll "review" but won't respond to. GDPR/ePD also requires "reject all" to be a single button, and asking the user to click a billion separate "reject" toggles is against the law, but many sites don't care.
pwg 2mo ago
With UblockOrigin blocking all Javascript by default there was no cookie banner, just the article and photographs.

Deukhoofd 2mo ago

I wonder how they're doing right now with water levels reaching critical low points.

t0mas88 2mo ago
Water levels in this area are tightly managed by pumps. Also in normal times they pump water in and out to keep a specific level. All of this is lower than the Amsterdamrijnkanaal, so without pumps it would flood, water doesn't naturally flow out of this place only from evaporation.

t0mas88 2mo ago

People don't really live there, these are holiday/recreational homes. My family owns two of those islands with a holiday home. Typically you use them for the weekend. My mom for example lives in a busy city and has a small garden, she uses the holiday home as a weekend getaway and a place to keep the sailing boat. The Netherlands are small and this area is very central, about 20 minutes drive from Amsterdam or Utrecht. So most owners use it in the same way.

sundache 2mo ago
You're not allowed to live there officially, but some people do.
- t0mas88 2mo ago
  Yes but those mostly live landside, there are holiday homes at the edge of the lake as well. There was a plan to allow permanent use, but I think it now changed to only allowing it for people that already live there and no new cases.
  - CalRobert 2mo ago
    Seems a shame in a housing crisis.
    - retired 2mo ago
      There is a reason for it. Infrastructure, access roads, public transit stops, build quality, utilities. The Netherlands has very high standards for homes and the direct surroundings and these homes do not meet those criteria. You would also have significantly more emissions if people started living there which would go against the emission limits for nearby nature.
    - analog31 2mo ago
      Let me guess, no sewage disposal.

DivingForGold 2mo ago

I read these properties are actually some of the most expensive properties in The Netherlands ($ million dollar). But no electricity (need generator) and you cannot drive your car to your lakehouse. Plus, I bet the mosquitos are horrible, it is a former swamp.

retired 2mo ago
Easily over a million for the ones without neighbors. The most expensive one was listed for 13 million. These are holiday homes for wealthy elites in Amsterdam. You either go there straight from Amsterdam by helicopter or you have a chauffeur drive/boat you there. These people don’t drive themselves. But probably not for long with non-primary real estate being taxed at 2.2% a year.
- gield 2mo ago
  > The most expensive one was listed for 13 million. This one [1]? It's a huge villa (not on an island) plus 2 islands for that price, so not really comparable. I found a more representative example of an island with a house that is currently for sale [2]. It is listed for €1.5 million. [1] https://www.quotenet.nl/vastgoed/qasteel/a62799798/joop-drechsel-euro1375-miljoen-villa-2-eilandjes https://www.quotenet.nl/vastgoed/qasteel/a62799798/joop-drec... [2] https://www.funda.nl/detail/koop/loosdrecht/huis-drecht-16/44407652 https://www.funda.nl/detail/koop/loosdrecht/huis-drecht-16/4...
  - retired 2mo ago
    Found another one at 8 million and is on an island: https://www.quotenet.nl/vastgoed/qasteel/a62814634/luxueus-plaspaleis-in-lovely-loosdrecht-kost-euro8-miljoen/ https://www.quotenet.nl/vastgoed/qasteel/a62814634/luxueus-p... This was in 2024 so likely valued around 9 million by now. The home you listed at Funda comes in at €42000 per square meter which is unheard of for The Netherlands. Not even Amsterdam Center comes close. These homes are one of the most expensive pieces of real estate in the country.
  - Scarblac 2mo ago

nsm 2mo ago

Is this area the inspiration for the Gyptians in The Golden Compass?

tromp 2mo ago

You may find this area on google maps at https://www.google.com/maps/@52.1792241,5.0288801,516m https://www.google.com/maps/@52.1792241,5.0288801,516m

AnodicElegy 2mo ago

Looks lovely. I wonder if it has good fishing.

t0mas88 2mo ago
With a boat, as far as I know the sides aren't good fishing spots. There is a website about it: https://www.vissenoploosdrecht.nl/fotos/ https://www.vissenoploosdrecht.nl/fotos/

robotnikman 2mo ago

I wish I could live there, seems like the perfect spot.

calmworm 2mo ago

Ahh, the Netherlands… strips of land through their water and strips of water through their land…