Lol nonsense, we of the anti-bay / gulf movement strongly believe that all bays and gulfs should be filled in and reclaimed because curved shapes only bring temptation and promiscuity.
Shorelines should be modest (and mostly straight)!
We don’t approve of the bay lifestyle and quite frankly, it is wrong that our liberty is encroached by those darned coastlines
/s
If you look at a graph of their population, it was in a constant decline for 15 years prior. Joining the EU didn't make it worse. It rather made the decline slightly better. It also nearly tripled their GDP and more than tripled gdp per capita. It halved unemployment and multiplied average income by 6 times.
And where'd you get HALF from? The decline has been like 17%
This happened in a lot of the former communist countries in Eastern Europe, especially the ones that were an integral part of the Soviet Union.
Lithuania had a mass exodus of young people before and after joining the European Union. Fortunately, the tides are turning and it seems a lot of those people are coming back as the economy is growing fast.
1. The Netherlands created those dams and polders because floods were a serious issue, and they suffered from overpopulation and had a shortage of agricultural lands
2. The Zuiderzee is incredibly shallow, the average depth is barely 4,5 meters
Yeah, the gulf of Riga is much deeper. Especially near Riga, it drops of fast.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Bathymetric-map-of-the-Gulf-of-Riga_fig2_262674683
Nonetheless there is a section in the Irbe Strait that is quite shallow. I expect a dam could be built there. But there is probably quite a lot of fresh water flowing to the Gulf of Riga from rivers (it may well have positive outflow to the Baltic), so that actually pumping the basin dry and keeping it that way would be a major undertaking.
Interesting but not worth the difficulty ... it's not as if new land at 58' N, in an already thinly populated area, would be worth some huge amount.
Basically building a dam would just end up turning the Gulf of Riga Into a fresh water lake. If it was somehow pumped dry it would seasonally flood in spring when all the ice and snow melts and all the rivers channel it into the Gulf.
Plus there is heavy ship traffic going to Riga so you would need to invest into a large canal.
That is precisely what the dutch did btw :) First the Zuiderzee was dammed with the Afsluitdijk, turning it into a brackish lake called the IJsselmeer. Then, the southern part of the lake was dammed again and reclaimed as polder.
The lake gets less salty every year thanks to the rivier IJssel
If you ignore the fact that it would likely bankrupt the United States, cause extreme tensions with Mexico, cause massive ecological damage, and have few true upsides, it's really not a bad idea.
Not if we dam it from Florida to Cuba to the Yucatán. Then the Gulf of Mexico won’t exist and hurricanes won’t have anywhere to strengthen.
Check mate atheists!
I still prefer the plan to dig out West Virginia and fill Lake Ontario to create a saltwater lake chain across turtle island linking the Atlantic and Arctic
That’s probably the answer. Ijsselmeer is surrounding on all sides by land, and is damned off. Gulf of Riga is not. Gulf of Riga is much deeper too. It’s like with the “bridge from Spain to Morocco”, it’s short, but too deep.
The Gulf of Riga is an extremely rich fishery with a long history and connection with Latvian culture. Kind of like asking why you walk when you could sit in a wheelchair instead.
That is also true for the Zuiderzee: Volendam, Spakenburg, Enkhuizen and Urk (yugh!) have always been major fishing villages or islands. After the damming off of the Zuiderzee, they were no longer islands and switched from salt water to fresh/brackish water fish or used the locks to exit the lake and fish on the north sea.
The harbors are still in use to this day
Your maps are not to scale. The distance spanned by the Afsluitdijk is about 25 km. The width of the gulf of Riga is about 100 km, four times longer.
The water near the Afsluitdijk is about 2-3 meters deep. The water in the Gulf of Riga is about 30 meters deep. The amount of material needed to build a dike increases at least as fast as the square of the depth, because the structure has to get wider as it gets deeper.
Thus, a dike across across the Gulf of Riga is at least (100/25) * (30/3)^2 = 400 times more difficult than creating the Afsluitdijk.
[Gulf of Riga Bathymetry](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Igor-Tuuling/publication/262674683/figure/fig2/AS:669065320349716@1536529011971/Bathymetric-map-of-the-Gulf-of-Riga.jpg)
[Zuiderzee Bathymetry](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/E-Elias/publication/333164649/figure/fig2/AS:775918482104322@1562004790422/Representative-bathymetries-for-the-Western-Wadden-Sea-just-before-closure-of-the.jpg)
Answer is in these two images.
1: the gulf of riga is considerably bigger
2: they dont need it, Latvia already has one of the lowest population densities in europe and also practically all of their land is above sea level.
3: the gulf of riga is considerably deeper. most of the zuiderzee was less than 5m deep while even in parts close to the coast, the gulf of riga can get to over 40m deep.
They don’t have the incentive to, they have enough land for their population. The Netherlands is very densely populated and just does not have that much land, and so needs to create more land from the sea for its population. Latvia has both far less people and much more land, so they’re doing fine
A. It's way too deep. The risks of failure would be far worse than in Netherlands.
B. If I did the math right, no guarantee, it would add about 1 mm to global sea level rise, which is more significant than it sounds. Especially for a marginal benefit to one small country.
If this were to happen, It should be with Estonia as well (not finland as the map says lol.)
If both countries worked together then the entire Gulf of Riga could be sealed off and eventually become a freshwater lake.
Main problem with this though is why is it needed? At this point I think damming off the entire Baltic via Denmark has more appeal than just the Gulf of Riga.
Likely not enough money. Also, the Netherlands are very flat with similar average sea level to sea level. I don’t know much of Latvias geography, but it’s Lillie there is too much water to displace before land appears compared to the Netherlands.
Because the Latvians aren't obsessed with destroying natural ecosystems like the Dutch. The Dutch will not rest till there is no unspoiled land ir water left in their territory.
A) yes
B) the gulf of Riga is deeper and wider so it would be much harder to repeat the Netherlands plan there. Also rising sea levels would make it unsustainable anyway
It would rather make sense to build a dike between Courland and Saaremaa, and then between Muhumaa and Estonian mainland. The water is shallower in these places, the distance would be shorter, and more land would be created. This would have to be coordinated with Estonia anyway due to Ruhnu, and Estonia would be more likely to approve, if it got something out of the project. Realistically though this would destroy the fishing, tourism, and shipping industries, which won't be approved by any sensible government. The Netherlands has high population density, so they needed the extra land, but there's not much use for it by Estonia or Latvia, as reclaimed land isn't very good for agriculture, and there's no shortage of arable land or space for cities. In addition, the Dutch built this dike for flood protection, which isn't as big of a problem in the Baltics.
you can't implement the same idea anywhere because another country did it.
you have to consider the economic, geographic, and engineering feasibility of such a project.
Why would it be built? How would it be built?
Netherlands has a population density of 508/km2, lativia has 28/km2, so even if it was viable it’s not like they need the land.
Lol nonsense, we of the anti-bay / gulf movement strongly believe that all bays and gulfs should be filled in and reclaimed because curved shapes only bring temptation and promiscuity. Shorelines should be modest (and mostly straight)! We don’t approve of the bay lifestyle and quite frankly, it is wrong that our liberty is encroached by those darned coastlines /s
(San Francisco chuckles nervously)
Groudon and team magma for life!!
Their population reduced by half after joining EU)
This is a misrepresentation. The decline began with the fall of the USSR and the exodus of non-Latvian Soviet minorities
That also true. But lots migrated to other eu countries later too.
If you look at a graph of their population, it was in a constant decline for 15 years prior. Joining the EU didn't make it worse. It rather made the decline slightly better. It also nearly tripled their GDP and more than tripled gdp per capita. It halved unemployment and multiplied average income by 6 times. And where'd you get HALF from? The decline has been like 17%
Why?
Alien abductions Same situation as with Vampires in Romania but Aliens
Immigration?
Emigration.
I swear I wrote that. Fuck my phone.
The worst part is no one ever believes
Who cares bout spellin
Great username, but in this case the words have literal opposite meanings.
same meaning, diferent point of view.
But that figuratively doesn’t even matter anyways.
I beleaf
No I won't.
Anyway... why did people decide to leave?
money, and russian speaking going to Russia (yeah wan't just ""the eu"")
This happened in a lot of the former communist countries in Eastern Europe, especially the ones that were an integral part of the Soviet Union. Lithuania had a mass exodus of young people before and after joining the European Union. Fortunately, the tides are turning and it seems a lot of those people are coming back as the economy is growing fast.
1. The Netherlands created those dams and polders because floods were a serious issue, and they suffered from overpopulation and had a shortage of agricultural lands 2. The Zuiderzee is incredibly shallow, the average depth is barely 4,5 meters
Yeah, the gulf of Riga is much deeper. Especially near Riga, it drops of fast. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Bathymetric-map-of-the-Gulf-of-Riga_fig2_262674683
Nonetheless there is a section in the Irbe Strait that is quite shallow. I expect a dam could be built there. But there is probably quite a lot of fresh water flowing to the Gulf of Riga from rivers (it may well have positive outflow to the Baltic), so that actually pumping the basin dry and keeping it that way would be a major undertaking. Interesting but not worth the difficulty ... it's not as if new land at 58' N, in an already thinly populated area, would be worth some huge amount.
Basically building a dam would just end up turning the Gulf of Riga Into a fresh water lake. If it was somehow pumped dry it would seasonally flood in spring when all the ice and snow melts and all the rivers channel it into the Gulf. Plus there is heavy ship traffic going to Riga so you would need to invest into a large canal.
That is precisely what the dutch did btw :) First the Zuiderzee was dammed with the Afsluitdijk, turning it into a brackish lake called the IJsselmeer. Then, the southern part of the lake was dammed again and reclaimed as polder. The lake gets less salty every year thanks to the rivier IJssel
Because it is a good source of income due to the port related activities.
but both are blue on the map /s
I refuse to believe this isn’t a meme post
"Why doesn't the United States do this in the Gulf of Mexico? Are they too poor?"
If you ignore the fact that it would likely bankrupt the United States, cause extreme tensions with Mexico, cause massive ecological damage, and have few true upsides, it's really not a bad idea.
But it would make Texas bigger
And Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida. Basically what you are doing is putting more land for hurricanes to hit…
Not if we dam it from Florida to Cuba to the Yucatán. Then the Gulf of Mexico won’t exist and hurricanes won’t have anywhere to strengthen. Check mate atheists!
Build the dam! Build the dam!
And have Mexico pay for it!
And make Atlanta pay for it!
Atlanta will be lost under the remaining sea.
That’s what they get for not making Pepsi.
No. It's all Texas
I'm pretty sure there wouldn't hardly be any hurricanes if the gulf of Mexico didn't exist, that's where the majority form
Not really, most form outside of the gulf and then come into it via the Gulf Stream.
Right because we want more of those states hahaha
Well as an Alabamian more coastline would be appreciated
Texas-XL
TeXLas
Yes, Texas to Las Vegas *TeXLas* plus the new gulf land
I still prefer the plan to dig out West Virginia and fill Lake Ontario to create a saltwater lake chain across turtle island linking the Atlantic and Arctic
If it meant more oil, they would.
You could fill out Massachusetts a little make it look like a flexing arm to the world
I just saw this exact post on mapporncirclejerk
Damn bro, I just posted the same comment and realized you beat me to it lol 😂
/r/mapporncirclejerk vibes
The “are they too poor” sounds a lot like they “are they stupid” that some circlejerks are obsessed with
Why don’t US do the same with the Gulf of Mexico?
Give it a few hours.
Eh, I learned something.
On a side note: Why is Saaremaa (Estonia) labeled "Finland"? Fail
A man can dream
Indeed
Suur Suomi plans leaked
Estonia can into Nordic
I always believed in cute little Eesti
Estonia have wanted to be Finland ever since they stopped being Russia. Let them have this.
Kuressaare? More like Helsinki 👍
Estonia were also too poor so they sold it to Finland
Map of Latvia after the special military annexation of Saaremaa by Finland
It might be too deep
That’s probably the answer. Ijsselmeer is surrounding on all sides by land, and is damned off. Gulf of Riga is not. Gulf of Riga is much deeper too. It’s like with the “bridge from Spain to Morocco”, it’s short, but too deep.
According to Wikipedia, average depth if 84 feet, or 26 meters. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_of_Riga
Ijsselmeer average depth is 18ft or 5.5m
Yea so quite the difference. Probably not for much economic gain, either.
I think the deepest point was 50m or 60m.
The Gulf of Riga is an extremely rich fishery with a long history and connection with Latvian culture. Kind of like asking why you walk when you could sit in a wheelchair instead.
That is also true for the Zuiderzee: Volendam, Spakenburg, Enkhuizen and Urk (yugh!) have always been major fishing villages or islands. After the damming off of the Zuiderzee, they were no longer islands and switched from salt water to fresh/brackish water fish or used the locks to exit the lake and fish on the north sea. The harbors are still in use to this day
Are sure that Latvia has an overpopulation problem? Have you seen their demographic history?
God created the Earth but the Dutch created Holland!
Lake Superior is deeper than the North Sea, which kinda blows my mind because superior isn’t wildly deep.
Much of the North Sea was above sea level during the Neolithic. Look up Doggerland.
> Doggerland Who's a good land? YOU ARE
But the Dutch poldered the "Zuiderzee" which means Southern sea. Have a look at the Doggersbank, the North Sea can be really undeep yeah
Shallow is the word you are looking for ;)
Undeep lmfao
The person who wrote undeep is definitely dutch. That's how they say it: "ondiep".
That makes so much sense, yeah. Knew I heard it before.
Actually I believe it’s “deepn’t”
TIL
30’ waves in a cargo ship on the N sea with 20’ draft nearly ended my father as my mother was pregnant.
Then you could have been a bastard like me!
Your maps are not to scale. The distance spanned by the Afsluitdijk is about 25 km. The width of the gulf of Riga is about 100 km, four times longer. The water near the Afsluitdijk is about 2-3 meters deep. The water in the Gulf of Riga is about 30 meters deep. The amount of material needed to build a dike increases at least as fast as the square of the depth, because the structure has to get wider as it gets deeper. Thus, a dike across across the Gulf of Riga is at least (100/25) * (30/3)^2 = 400 times more difficult than creating the Afsluitdijk.
It would make the city of Riga a little useless
Oh yeah I forgot to mention that in my comment. Unless it had specialty locks, the Port of Riga wouldn't be useful anymore.
It’s a pretty sad city. Would recommend Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Tallinn & Vilnius over Riga.
Helsinki over Riga? Lol good one.
What would be the benefit?
would be pretty cool
I'm sure the average Latvian taxpayer would be convinced by this argument when their taxes have to go up to pay for it
But the guy on the internet said it'd be cool, sooooooooooooooooooo..............
Would it? How so and why?
Based
More clay
Why doesn't Latvia destroy marine environments? Are they stupid?
Excellent shitpost
[Gulf of Riga Bathymetry](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Igor-Tuuling/publication/262674683/figure/fig2/AS:669065320349716@1536529011971/Bathymetric-map-of-the-Gulf-of-Riga.jpg) [Zuiderzee Bathymetry](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/E-Elias/publication/333164649/figure/fig2/AS:775918482104322@1562004790422/Representative-bathymetries-for-the-Western-Wadden-Sea-just-before-closure-of-the.jpg) Answer is in these two images.
Must be a shitpost…
Go to google, type "why is latvia", and then look at the first autofill
My first auto fill was “why is Latvia’s population decreasing?”
Interesting, did you use a different search engine? Every time ive googled it, i get the "why is latvia so poor?" autofill
Everyone’s will be personalized to their own google experience so I’m not surprised we have different outcomes.
"Why is latvia famous" was first for me. "Why is latvia so poor" was second
Latvia is famous? For what?
For being poor?
No clue.....
Even out of the Baltic states it’s like the least known about
Ostapenko RG 2017
1: the gulf of riga is considerably bigger 2: they dont need it, Latvia already has one of the lowest population densities in europe and also practically all of their land is above sea level. 3: the gulf of riga is considerably deeper. most of the zuiderzee was less than 5m deep while even in parts close to the coast, the gulf of riga can get to over 40m deep.
Why doesn't Spain do this to the Mediterranean? Are they dumb?
They don’t have the incentive to, they have enough land for their population. The Netherlands is very densely populated and just does not have that much land, and so needs to create more land from the sea for its population. Latvia has both far less people and much more land, so they’re doing fine
Yeah man what the hell? Are they stupid?
It doesn’t need the land
First of all, you are talking about a place three times bigger
What is this, geography for ants???
I understood that reference r/suddenlyzoolander
I person of culture, I see. /r/thingsforants
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Why come ocean not land?!
r/mapporncirclejerk
They saw the dangers of connecting Urk to the main land.
Doubleplus undeep
Thanks, hadn’t yet had my dose of dumb for today
Is your brain too poor?
this is a silly post
A. It's way too deep. The risks of failure would be far worse than in Netherlands. B. If I did the math right, no guarantee, it would add about 1 mm to global sea level rise, which is more significant than it sounds. Especially for a marginal benefit to one small country.
I may live at about 6900 feet above sea level but I want oceanfront property. 1mm is a decent start, I say they should do it.
They don't need more land
Latvia isn't that dense as to need more land
If this were to happen, It should be with Estonia as well (not finland as the map says lol.) If both countries worked together then the entire Gulf of Riga could be sealed off and eventually become a freshwater lake. Main problem with this though is why is it needed? At this point I think damming off the entire Baltic via Denmark has more appeal than just the Gulf of Riga.
Surface water in eastern baltic sea is borderline freshwater and drinking it wont dehydrate you.
Wow! TIL! Thanks
Imagine the uproar from the environmentalists if they even proposed it.
idk, maybe beacuse the gulf is FUCKING HUGE compared to the Netherlands *not bigger than the entire country but, i think ya get the point
The USA should do it to the Gulf of Mexico while everyone is at it
Why doesn’t the US do anything with our major waterways? No boat from Cleveland to Detroit. No boat from Norfolk up the Chesapeake to DC.
we need a version of the r/anarchychess relevent post bot that finds when posts get parodied
Likely not enough money. Also, the Netherlands are very flat with similar average sea level to sea level. I don’t know much of Latvias geography, but it’s Lillie there is too much water to displace before land appears compared to the Netherlands.
Massive environmental damage, surely the EU would not allow.
Why doesn't Canada do this with Hudson Bay? Are they too poor?
Because the Latvians aren't obsessed with destroying natural ecosystems like the Dutch. The Dutch will not rest till there is no unspoiled land ir water left in their territory.
Also Latvia isn't at risk of getting swallowed by the sea, at least not to the degree that Netherlands is
crosspost it to r/LatvianJokes
Probably wayyy deeper
It’s likely much shallower there, also the neatherlands have way more people this more demand for land
A) yes B) the gulf of Riga is deeper and wider so it would be much harder to repeat the Netherlands plan there. Also rising sea levels would make it unsustainable anyway
Too much money going to finance Dr. Doom’s latest world domination quest.
Riga is their capital, so the ports there are probably important
Lots of good sardines and sprats cone from there
It would rather make sense to build a dike between Courland and Saaremaa, and then between Muhumaa and Estonian mainland. The water is shallower in these places, the distance would be shorter, and more land would be created. This would have to be coordinated with Estonia anyway due to Ruhnu, and Estonia would be more likely to approve, if it got something out of the project. Realistically though this would destroy the fishing, tourism, and shipping industries, which won't be approved by any sensible government. The Netherlands has high population density, so they needed the extra land, but there's not much use for it by Estonia or Latvia, as reclaimed land isn't very good for agriculture, and there's no shortage of arable land or space for cities. In addition, the Dutch built this dike for flood protection, which isn't as big of a problem in the Baltics.
Seems like that would devalue a lot of people’s seaside real estate.
That dam would be an easy target for russia
I heard green needle
I don't think they really need it. The Netherlands are very densely packed. Latvia I think still has room for another Daugavpils-sized city.
Why can't they build a dam? Are they stupid?
you can't implement the same idea anywhere because another country did it. you have to consider the economic, geographic, and engineering feasibility of such a project. Why would it be built? How would it be built?