Dutch create world's biggest artificial wave to test flood defences

Concrete channel, three years in the making and 300 metres long, will help engineers develop better protection from flooding

Studying the oceans is a matter of survival for the below-sea-level-dwelling Dutch, and scientists in the Netherlands have now unveiled the world's biggest manmade wave to prepare for the worst.

"Here we can test what happens if enormous waves hit our dykes," said infrastructure minister Melanie Schultz van Haegen as she inaugurated the giant wave machine in the city of Delft on Monday.