Welcome back! Today we took a trip to Delta Works. we left at around 8:30 and arrived at 10. The Delta Works actually refers to the whole system of dams, dikes, and flood gates that exist in the Netherlands, but there’s also a Delta Works museum located outside of Rotterdam, and that what we visited.

We watched a brief movie about how the Delta Works were created, and we were given a tour of the museum. As an environmental engineer, I absolutely loved learning about how the works were created and engineered in a way that causes minimal harm to the wildlife.

Because the dikes spend the majority of the time open, it allows tides to flow naturally in and out of the deltas, and it also allows the sea life to move at will between the deltas and the Black Sea. Making sure the natural world remained undisturbed was a big consideration in building the dam, and continues to be a consideration in its upkeep. As the world changes and humans have to alter the environment to adapt, we have to keep in mind the local ecosystems and ensure our actions don’t jeopardize them.

We learned a lot of really interesting facts about the Delta Works. For example, we learned that the gates have only been completely closed 32 times since its completion in 1997. They only close the gates when a really bad storm is detected and a storm surge is predicted. Once they decide to close the gates, it takes only one hour and ten minutes for all the gates to close and protect the entire coast.

After our tour, we ate lunch at the museums cafeteria, then had some free time to look around. Around the museum there’s hundreds of wind turbines generating energy off of the strong winds blowing in from the Black Sea, and some friends and I took a walk on the beach to view them.

We also took a short boat ride out into the delta and it was lovely. After that we came back to Rotterdam and got some dinner, and now we’re about to head off to bed. Tomorrow we visit InHolland in Rotterdam, see you then!