The Dutch lowlands is an artificial landscape, created as a result of the wish to regulate the water that dominated the topography in the Delta. This ‘confined’ lowland water, the polder-boezem system12, features an enormously diverse range of water structures and forms, which largely dictates the spatial planning of the lower Netherlands.

This dissertation concerns the polder-boezem system, a water system that was created by trial-anderror, has been adapted continually and now needs to be expanded to cope with the effects of climate change. The research focuses on answering the following question: What potential does the current polder-boezem system have, with the help of landscape architectonic design, to define (or redefine) the spatial identity of the lowlands?