Guidance Dunes
Index section Dunes
- Description of dune ecosystem
- Dune biotopes: areas
- Dunes: breeding birds, butterflies and sand lizard
- Fox and seagulls in the dunes
- Subsection: Dunes: Drying up and Rewetting
- Subsection: Vegetation of the Dunes
Introduction
Along the coast from Zwin in Zeeland to Rottumeroog there is an almost unbroken line of dunes, 300 km long, making the dunes one of the largest ecosystems in the Netherlands.
Because of their large variation in soils and biotopes, the dunes are rich in plant and animal species. Some 65% of the Dutch flora is found here and 9% can only be found in the dunes.
The drying up and rewetting of the dunes
Until about 1900 there were large damp areas in the dunes. In many locations these disappeared in the first half of the twentieth century, largely as a result of the abstraction of groundwater for drinking water.
The vegetation of the dunes
In the days when people harvested wood and there was extensive grazing, the dune landscape was almost bare. After these practices ceased at the beginning of the twentieth century, and marram was planted and the atmospheric deposition of nitrogen increased, the natural succession accelerated and scrub has encroached - particularly on the calcareous dunes. Fast-growing species like wood small-reed have also encroached in the dune grass vegetation. The decline in rabbit numbers reinforced this vegetation change.
The encroachment of shrubs and fast-growing grasses has major implications for breeding birds and butterflies.
