Schipbeek – Nieuwe Sluis weir

The Nieuwe Sluis weir on the Schipbeek must be made passable for fish. The Rhine and IJssel water board is aware that the surroundings of the weir are too special to regard the commission merely as a matter of clear technical design. Therefore Strootman Landschapsarchitecten was invited to design a long-term perspective taking off from the rich history of the location (even Cornelis Lely made sketches beside the Schipbeek).

The Schipbeek is a good example of an ingenious water system in the eastern Netherlands. From 1400 on short-cuts were dug out of the extensive marshy area to channel brooks eastwards towards the IJssel and the Hansa towns situated around it. As a result, the Schipbeek became an important trade route from Twente to Deventer until the nineteenth century, when it was superseded by rail and road transport. At the moment the Schipbeek is only used as a drainage network.

The network around the Nieuwe Sluis is complex. Two provinces and two water boards meet here, and in the past bloody battles were fought for the water. The result is that different water systems run in parallel, with the Schipbeek as a regional flow unconnected with the local ditches.

On the basis of five perspectives and an interactive work session, we have drawn up a long-term vision for the Nieuwe Sluis. It envisages a single, connected water system with room for morphological processes and a relocation of the brooks in their original valley.

What does all this mean for the Nieuwe Sluis weir? It can disappear… Upstream a few cascades that are passable for fish will be created to gradually bring the water to the required level. The sand filter also disappears, making room for erosion and sedimentation within the brook. The junctions of the Schipbeek/Buurserbeek with the Diepenheimse-Molenbeek and the upper Regge are made passable for fish, so that the last bottlenecks for fishing in the Schipbeek/Regge system disappear. We further propose to place the excavated part of the Schipbeek in a double lane to reinforce the contrast between brook and canal and to make the Schipbeek system legible again.