The Netherlands’ historic and long-lasting connection to the sea dates back to the initial sea-faring voyages charted by the kings of the 600s. During the eighth day of travel, the Netherlands group traveled up towards the flood water museum: Watersnoodmuseum. This remote place contained a plethora of knowledge on the devastating flood of 1953 and the efforts to rebuild and prevent future disasters from occurring. Before I visited the museum, I had no knowledge of the Great Flood of ’53 in the Netherlands. Countless lives were lost during this natural disaster. Most starkly, the number of children who perished from the event. Many of the houses in the area were old and without proper heating and plumbing. The flood prompted nations from across Europe to band together and aid in reconstructing the lands.

Reconstruction and education were the primary measures taken to help the people affected by the flood. From Germany to France, countless European nations offered thousands of fully built homes for the families who lost their livelihoods. These homes included electricity, plumbing, and proper heating systems. While these appliances appeared modern and overly generous to the citizens, these items helped kickstart the education and flood-prevention programs within villages. By alleviating cooking and ironing time with modern, electric tools, households could devote more time to educating children and have adults work on establishing water barriers. By promoting social quality-of-life programs, environmental sustainability can vastly improve across communities.

Before implementing water barriers at the time, beach samples were taken from the ground to analyze the type of flooding that can occur in the area. Due to the lack of modern cameras and such, analyzing sediment samples allowed people to determine the amount of sandbags and barriers required for an area by seeing how much displaced sand existed in an area. While crude by today’s standards, these soil analyses still offered valuable data for water protection efforts. In combination with more time allotted by modern appliances getting installed within villages, community members could properly pitch in to help create the water barriers and dykes along the coasts of the Netherlands. Continuing to help people in need helps protect the environment by allowing everyone to contribute towards saving the planet we all live on.