Clio defeating Neptune: a pyrrhic victory? Men and their influence on the evolution of coastal landscapes in the North Sea area

Abstract

In this article I tried to illuminate some of the most important aspects about the way human communities have influenced the natural coastal eco-system, often with disastrous long term results. It focuses especially on the human influence during the Middle Ages and the Old Regime. In its conclusion, it highlights arguments for a huge regional and temporal diversity of evolutions, since human influence was not everywhere identical. Moreover, because human activity often triggered natural phenomena and vice versa, and because we know from recent research (see e.g. the many other articles in this volume) that natural phenomena causing changes in marine environments were also much more regionally different compared to what was believed some decades ago (Verhulst and Gottschalk, 1980), it is logical that the regional component is crucial in the explanation of the evolution of coastal landscapes.