The Drowned Black Polder

The beach at Nieuwvliet is interrupted about halfway by a 55-hectare nature reserve: the Verdronken Zwarte Polder. A high salt marsh with an opening in the thicket-covered row of dunes. As a result, a creek invades and ensures that it is an area with both salty and sweet elements.

The Verdronken Zwarte Polder has it all: a cultural-historical story, different types of landscape, such as mudflats, salt marshes and dunes and a great diversity of plants and animals. If you are looking for variety, you should visit this area. Do you want to know where the name comes from? The area is literally a drowned polder. In 1623 the Zwarte Polder was constructed. This polder was flooded in 1802. This is where the area gets the name: Verdronken Zwarte Polder (Drowned Black Polder).

The salt marshes were created by the inflow and outflow of seawater. This has created trenches in the former fields and clay and silt was deposited. A salt marsh has arisen here. The wind caused the remnants of the dike to be covered by sand. This is how the dunes on the seaward side were created.

The sea still enters the area through the slufter, the opening in the row of dunes. Many cubic meters of sand flow into the area. As a result, the salt marsh is rapidly elevated. As a result, the area rarely floods completely. A gradual sweetening of the area is the result.

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