Jaap Schoof is an 81-year-old survivor who grew up on the island of Schouwen-Duiveland in Zeeland, the Netherlands. Born in 1944, he experienced the devastating North Sea flood of 1953 firsthand when he was nearly nine years old.
Throughout his life, Jaap has remained closely connected to his region and its history. He later became involved in preserving the memory of the disaster, including serving as a director at the local Watersnoodmuseum (flood disaster museum), where he helped collect and share the stories of other survivors.
What has climate change done here?
When I was only 8 years old, this land was shaped by the threat of flooding, most of all, by the disaster of 1953. I remember waking up that Sunday morning and seeing our farm standing alone, surrounded by water. My father told my grandmother not to worry, the water was only as high as it had been in 1944, when the Germans flooded the region on purpose. But by the afternoon, another surge came, and suddenly we were sitting on the attic, listening to cows swimming outside until the sounds of them disappeared. The next day, a neighbour rescued us by boat, and marines took us to safety.
In those days, after a flood, the rain would come and wash the salt out of the land. We could return to farming. But now, climate change has made everything more difficult. Saltwater is seeping in under the dikes, and hot, dry summers mean there’s less fresh rainwater to flush the salt away. Even a small drop in the harvest, just five percent, can mean the difference between making a living and losing everything. The margins are razor-thin these days.
What do you think world leaders have to do now to stop things from getting worse and to help us adapt?
I don’t believe they’ll solve the problem. They’re all looking out for themselves. We have the technical solutions: higher dikes, new dams, inland lakes. But these things need strong political will and decisive action, and I don’t see that happening today. The plans for the Delta Works (a network of dams and barriers in southwest Netherlands that protect the land from flooding) were ready long before the disaster, but it took a crisis to make them real. Now, with all the consultations and legal battles, it’s much harder to get anything done.
It’s noble to imagine a world leader standing up and saying, ‘We must all consume less.’ But that’s not going to happen. No one is going to do that. You can’t write a manual for solving this. What’s important is that we’re aware of the risks and that we prepare for what’s coming. We need to be ready to adapt, to change, and to help each other when things get tough. That’s the only way forward.
Life expectancy 2023
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