Johan van Veen was the fifth child of seven in a farming family. He was the brother of Marie van Veen, married to the artist Johan Dijkstra. In 1913, after high school graduation, he started his studies in Delft at the Technische Hoogeschool van Delft. He studied civil engineering. In 1919, he graduated as "ingenieur" (equivalent to M.Sc. in engineering).[1]
Provincial Water Authority Drenthe
Van Veen worked as an engineer for the Drainage Department of the Provincial Water Authority of the Province of Drenthe. The task of this department was to develop plans to improve the drainage and road structure of the province. In turn, this would enlarge the agricultural yield and to transport the products in a more efficient way to the markets (in the western part of the Netherlands).
During World War I, it became evident that the Netherlands depended too strongly on food products from abroad. The interwar years were focused on agriculture. In order to have solid grounds for such plans, the borders of watersheds were charted, discharge measurements were made and leveling out valleys and the adjacent higher grounds works were executed. Van Veen carried out these studies in cooperation with agricultural engineer F.P. Mesu (who graduated in Wageningen).[2]
Surinam
In 1926, van Veen left the Provincial Water Authority. From August 1926 to October 1928, he worked in Surinam at the Surinaamse Bauxiet Maatschappij (Suriname Bauxite Company), later a subsidiary of Alcoa, in Moengo, Suriname.[3]
Rijkswaterstaat
In 1929, after his return to the Netherlands, van Veen held a position at Rijkswaterstaat (the Executive Agency of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure). He became head of the newly created Research Department for Tidal Rivers and Estuaries. His first assignment was to improve the hydraulic conditions at Hellegat, a complicated bifurcation of estuary branches. He also developed a new method to calculate tides, an improvement on the formulas developed by Hendrik Lorentz on the closure of the Zuiderzee.
He published his Ph.D. thesis on sand movement in the Strait of Dover (which was relevant for Dutch coastal morphology), based on extensive measurements in that area. He wrote many (Dutch) reports on the coasts, tidal movements, estuaries and salt intrusion.[4]
In the years before and during World War II, van Veen executed many studies on the problem of salt intrusion into tidal rivers. During the war, he prepared a plan called "Verlandingsplan" to manipulate tidal rivers in such a way that natural silting-up would take place, and that to reclaim this new land would be easy. Just after the war, he presented this plan again, but mainly because at that time the country focused rather not on reclaiming land, but on repairing war damage.[5]
Delta Plan
From 1937 onward, van Veen warned about the deplorable condition of the Dutch flood defences. He stipulated that a disaster was imminent, but politically he found no support for his warnings, the main reason being that improvement of dikes would cost a lot of money, which was not available in the Netherlands just after the war (the country depended mainly on money from the Marshall Plan).
In 1939, Pieter Jacobus Wemelsfelder, a colleague of van Veen, published a paper in the journal de Ingenieur(English: The Engineer) that was the first to apply statistical methods to the occurrence of storm surges.[6] His research suggested a shift in design approach, moving away from basing flood design on the highest observed flood level towards designing for a flood with a calculated probability. In the same year, van Veen conducted a factor analysis of storm surges for the first time. His work explored how changes in river run-off, river channel geometry, and sea level rise affected the design flood. Despite these studies focusing on different aspects of storm surges, they arrived at the same conclusion: that the delta region of The Netherlands faced significant dangers.[7] Since 1938, van Veen had been working on plans to mitigate these risks. He proposed constructing a dike ring for four islands, a storm surge barrier in the Lek, and a high ring of dikes around Dordrecht.
In 1940, van Veen was one of the authors of the Voorlopig rapport van de Commissie inzake stormvloeden op de benedenrivieren (English: Preliminary report by the Commission on Storm Surges in the Lower Rivers), which addressed the pressing issue of flood management in the Netherlands' lower river regions. The report identified significant deficiencies in the height of dikes - up to 1 metre in some areas - and highlighted vulnerabilities along critical waterways such as the Hollandse IJssel and the Merwede. The commission provided detailed recommendations, including dike reinforcements, controlled land reclamation, and strategic closures of vulnerable waterways to mitigate the risk of catastrophic flooding.[8]
The report incorporated advanced hydrological and mathematical analyses for its time, examining factors such as astronomical tides, storm surges, high river discharge, and long-term sea level rise, which was projected at 20 centimetres per century. Though the report's findings were not fully acted upon due to the outbreak of World War II, it laid the groundwork for post-war flood management initiatives and presaged the innovative engineering solutions later embodied in the Delta Works. Notably, the report demonstrated van Veen's approach to integrating empirical data with predictive modelling to inform sustainable flood defence strategies.[8]
Van Veen published a book in English on the history of Dutch hydraulic engineering, titled Dredge, Drain, Reclaim: The Art of a Nation.[9] In later editions, van Veen added a chapter under the pseudonym "Dr. Cassandra", using this alias to issue warnings about the pressing flood risks faced by the Netherlands. His final advisory report, dated 29 January 1953, included a comprehensive study of these risks and a detailed plan to mitigate them by closing specific estuaries.
Just days later, the Netherlands was struck by the devastating North Sea flood of 1 February 1953, the worst storm surge in the country's history. In the aftermath of the disaster, a State Commission was established on 18 February 1953, with Johan van Veen appointed as its Secretary.
By May 1953, the commission released its first interim report, urgently recommending the closure of the Hollandse IJssel with a storm surge barrier and the implementation of van Veen’s plan to close the estuaries, which later became the basis for the Delta Works. This ambitious programme of flood defences was eventually realised. The commission's final report was published in 1960, a year after Van Veen’s death. As a result, van Veen is remembered as the "Father of the Delta Plan" in the Netherlands and as the "Master of the Floods" in England.[10][11]
Inventions
Johan van Veen has a number of inventions to his name. Notable is the Van Veen Grab Sampler, a device to take (disturbed) bed samples from the seabed (around 1930).[12] He is also the inventor of the pneumatic barrier to prevent salt intrusion (around 1940).[13] In 1930, he proved the analogy between electricity and water flow. From this principle he developed an analog computer to calculate tidal flow (electric analogon).[14] In the period 1944-1956 it had become operational. Later on this machine was updated and became the practical computer to calculate tidal flow and water levels in the Dutch Delta to predict the effect of closure works, the Delta Works. This analog computer now bears the name Deltar.[15]
Personal life and death
On May 5, 1927, van Veen married Hendrika ("Henny") Aalfs during his stay in Suriname. They had three children. Unfortunately, their marriage was not very happy.
Although he came from a Dutch Reformed Church family, he converted to Christian Science until 1937, following his sister Anna, who lived in the United States.[16]
Van Veen suffered from a number of heart attacks, the first one in 1937 and later in 1948 a heavy one after his "four-island-plan" was rejected. In 1959 he had his last, fatal attack in the train when on his way to a meeting regarding his plan of a new harbour near Delfzijl, the Eemshaven.[17]
Awards and recognition
Unveiling of a statue of van Veen in Capelle aan den IJssel in 2020.Bronze bust of Johan van Veen by Fred Hartog
In 2020, the Stichting Blauwe Lijn organisation unveiled a statue of van Veen in Capelle aan den IJssel.[18][19] The central square in van Veen's birthplace of Uithuizermeeden is named for him, and a bust of him was erected there in 1979.[20] The character Joost van Ven in the debut novel 1953 by Rik Launspach was inspired by van Veen, with the novel subsequently being adapted into the 2009 film The Storm.[21][22][23]
Van Veen was recognised with a number of awards, both during his lifetime and posthumously, including:
1936: Awarded the Golden Medal (Gouden erepenning) of the Bataafs Genootschap for his dissertation Onderzoekingen in de Hoofden (Investigations in the Straits of Dover).
2017: Included in the Alumni Walk of Fame of the TU Delft as the founder of the Delta Works.[24]
Bibliography
A selection of important publications by van Veen (in Dutch)
Many of van Veen's publications can be viewed at the Van Veen-Stroband Archive Netherlands National Archives. A list of all his publications (mainly in Dutch) is available at the Tresor of Dutch Hydraulic Engineering.
Some key publications by Johan van Veen
Date of Publication
Original Language Title
English Translation
Brief Description
Citation
1929
Nota betreffende de noodzakelijkheid van een systematisch onderzoek van de Westerschelde
Note on the Necessity of Systematic Research on the Western Scheldt
Emphasizes the importance of systematic research for understanding and managing the Western Scheldt.
Van der Ham, Willem (2020). Johan van Veen, meester van de zee: Grondlegger van het Deltaplan [Johan van Veen, Master of the Sea: Founder of the Delta Plan] (in Dutch). Boom. ISBN9789024433919.
Rooijendijk, Cordula (2009). Waterwolven: Een geschiedenis van stormvloeden, dijkenbouwers en droogmakers [Waterwolves: A History of Storm Surges, Dike Builders, and Reclaimers] (in Dutch). Uitgeverij Atlas. ISBN9789046703380.
Bregman, Rutger (2020). Het water komt [The Water is Coming] (in Dutch). De Correspondent. ISBN9789083017761.
^ abHeyst, D.A.; Kempees, A.E.; Rulkens, J.W.; Schlingemann, F.L.; Schönfeld, J.F.; Versteeg, H.; van der Wal, L.T.; van Veen, J. (1940). Voorlopig rapport van de Commissie inzake stormvloeden op de benedenrivieren [Preliminary Report by the Commission on Storm Surges in the Lower Rivers] (in Dutch). Retrieved 6 December 2024.
^"Johan van Veen". Historische Alumni Lustrumuitgave 2017 (in Dutch). TU Delft, Alumni Walk of Fame. Archived from the original on 28 January 2020. Retrieved 7 December 2024.
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