Over the last 1,000 years the coastlines along the German North Sea including its islands have significantly changed. This is strongly correlated with sea level rise, storm surges, and human activities performed by mankind through diking, land reclamation, soil degradation caused by burning peat for salt production, urbanization, and industrialization. Coastal engineering in Germany has a long tradition based on elementary requirements of coastal inhabitants for living and survival along the endangered coastlines. Initial empirical gained knowledge was developed to a system providing a technical and scientific basis for coastal protection and engineering measures. The emphasis in this paper is on highlighting the genesis of the German North Sea coastline in context of sea level rise and storm surges and those kinds of pioneering in German coastal engineering over the past 1000 years.
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