You know the Netherlands will be literally underwater within this century, don't you?
You know the Netherlands will be literally underwater within this century, don't you?
Since the disastrous 1953 flood, they've installed humongous valves at the mouths of all estuaries (Delta Works). If sea level increases more than a meter or so, they'll need to modify it.
On the positive side, they have 500 years of experience building dykes and defending their coast line. Their experience will be invaluable to fight off raise of sea level during the current century, inland and around the world.
On the negative, they have huge liabilities that can be triggered even by temporary floods. Refugee crisises during storms, lost of high value agricultural land due to increased salinity of soil, etc. All this will cut down on their budget to support their current dyke infrastructure, precisely at a time when they should be extending and enhancing it agressively.
Rinse and repeat for 50 years, and you are bonded to see an ever growing number of marginal areas that are deemed not worth salvaging and left to be turned in unproductive swamps. I do not see the impoverished and overpopulated remanant of Netherlands surviving for long afterwards.
Best case scenario I imagine is they will be absorbed by Germany, who may at that time have the economic power to keep the dykes in running order. Or they may try to stick to their own guns, in which case it is hard to tell how much land they will be able to hold dry.