A disaster like the one of 1953 was not allowed to ever happen again. Everyone agreed on that. A special commission was formed; the Delta commission and the came up with a plan that same year. Apart from strengthening the coasts the commission advised to shorten the coast by 700 kilometres. The idea was that the shorter the coast, the easier the defense. This has been used before in Dutch water engineering. A good example is the Afsluitdijk. In 1932, the south sea was closed off by using the Afsluitdijk. Now the South sea is named Ijsselmeer, taken from the North sea. The Dutch coast line was shortened by 360 kilometres and the chance of floods was far less.
The Delta commission advised to close all water arms in the Delta region and to bring all dikes and dunes up to the so called Delta level. This meant 5 metres NAP at the Hoek van Holland. The chance of floods would then be 1 / 4000 per year for the Delta plan and 1 /10.000 per year in the North of the Randstad. The Delta law, that came out of the plans of the commission was approved in 1958 and ratified by parliament. The Delta plan would not only provide safety but also other advantages: a better water control, more land, less salting of the land, fresh water lakes for agriculture, new recreation areas and over the dams, better connections to the South West of the Netherlands.
For the Dutch water engineers the Delta plan was a huge job. No other nation in the world had ever closed off such a huge part of sea. Earlier experiences and techniques had not been sufficient for such a huge project. So the different parts of the Delta plan were taken step by step. Step by step the interesting water engineering project was, in general, of increasing difficulty.
