You can browse the Netherlands Relative Land Motion Map using the link below which will also allow you to pan and zoom.

​

Some layers highlighting examples of land motion have been included:

​

Salt Mining, Veendam and Barradeel Concessions.  The subsidence in these areas is due to solution salt mining where water is injected to dissolve the salt which is then pumped to the surface.

​

Railway Subsidence.  There are many instances of railway subsidence in the Netherlands, assumed due to compaction of the soft soil by repeated loading.  The most interesting instances are in rural areas where the impact of the subsidence can be seen to extend to an area much larger than the track itself.  Here, we have highlighted the following examples:

​

Betuweroute Freight Line.  This survey has detected an almost unbroken 90km stretch of subsidence along a major European freight line connecting Rotterdam to Germany.

Amsterdam to Utrecht

Lelystad.  This example shows a clear difference between the impact in rural and urban environments.

Rotterdam

​

A5 Highway.  Subsidence can be seen along this section of the A5 in Amsterdam, affecting both highway and slip roads.

​

Agriculture, Flevoland.  Flevoland is a very fertile agricultural area but, as is shown in this area, it is also characterised by soil subsidence.  Balancing soil subsidence with rising water levels is a challenge across the whole of the Netherlands.

​

Coal Mining, Limburg, Netherlands and North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany.  Coal mining in the Netherlands ended in the 1970s, but the area above the abandoned mines continue to uplift, due to the effect of rising mine water after pumping ceased.  The coal measures extended across Belgium and Germany, too, and here we see a large amount of subsidence around the Tagebau Garzweiler lignite mine in Germany.

​

Groningen Gas Field.  This is the largest natural gas field in Europe, found in 1959, and has been producing since 1963.  It is infamous for the frequency and intensity of earthquakes caused by local variations in compaction of the reservoir rock following gas extraction, which also causes the surface to subside.