Part 1 ¿ Human occupation and management of a fertile Delta
CHAPTER 2 ¿ Prehistory and early history of the Delta
CHAPTER 3 - The Delta in the late middle ages (800 ¿ 1500)
CHAPTER 4 ¿ Technical achievements in river management (1500 ¿ 1800)
CHAPTER 5 ¿ River management after 1800: complete regulation and canalisation
Part 2 ¿ The legacy of human intervention
CHAPTER 6 ¿ Changes in the relation between man and nature
CHAPTER 7 ¿ Land use: agriculture and use of wood
CHAPTER 8 ¿ River fisheries through the ages
CHAPTER 9 ¿ Floods and flood protection
CHAPTER 10 ¿ Human intervention in the SW Delta
CHAPTER 11 ¿ Human intervention in tributaries of the large rivers Part 3 ¿ History of industrial pollution and its control
CHAPTER 12 ¿ Changing Rhine ecosystems: pollution and rehabilitation
CHAPTER 13 ¿ Changing Meuse ecosystems: pollution and rehabilitation
CHAPTER 14 ¿ Pollution and rehabilitation of the aquatic environment in the Delta Part 4 ¿ Ecology of biota in a man-made landscape: deterioration and rehabilitation
CHAPTER 15 ¿ River-fish fauna of the Delta
CHAPTER 16 ¿ Eelgrass wax and wane: a case study
CHAPTER 17 ¿ Exotics and invasions of plants and animals
CHAPTER 18 ¿ Changes in biodiversity: lower organisms, vegetation and flora
CHAPTER 19 - Changes in biodiversity: birds and mammals and their use Part 5 ¿ An ecological story on evolving human - environmental relations coping with climate change and sea-level rise ¿ a synthesis
CHAPTER 20 ¿ The making of the Delta
CHAPTER 21 ¿ The future of the Delta

This book presents the environmental history of the Delta of the lowland rivers Rhine and Meuse, an ecological story on evolving human¿environmental relations coping with climate change and sea-level rise. It offers a combination of in-depth ecology and environmental history, dealing with exploitation of land and water, the use of everything nature provided, the development of fisheries and agriculture, changes in biodiversity of higher plants, fish, birds, mammals and invasive exotics. It is the first comprehensive book written in English on the integrated environmental history of the Delta, from prehistoric times up to the present day. It covers the l- acy of human intervention, the inescapable fate of reclaimed, nevertheless subs- ing and sinking polders, ¿bathtubs¿ attacked by numerous floods, reclaimed in the Middle Ages and unwittingly exposed to the rising sea level and the increasing amplitude between high and low water in the rivers. The river channels, constricted and regulated between embankments, lost their flood plains, silted up, degraded and incised. Cultivation of raised bog deposits led to oxidation and compacting of peat and clay, resulting in progressive subsidence and flooding; arable land had to be changed into grassland and wetland. For millennia muscular strength and wind and water powers moulded the country into its basic form. From 1800 onwards, acceleration and scaling up by steam power and electricity, and exponential popu- tion growth, resulted in the erection of human structures ¿fixed forever¿, and severe pressure on the environment.

Piet Nienhuis (Groningen, 29 October 1938) passed through an international career of 40 years as researcher (biologist, ecologist) and research leader at the Netherlands Royal Academy of Arts and Sciences, and as professor and director at the Radboud University Nijmegen (the Netherlands) and the Free University Brussels (Belgium). He was chairman and advisor of services of the European Commission and several Dutch governmental departments. He published hundreds of scientific publications, mainly devoted to ecology and environmental sciences, in particular to estuarine and river ecology and management. After his retirement in 2003 he continued his writing activities, together with his editorial and advisory work.