Delta Works, a storm surge project located in Zeeland, highlighted our 10th day of exploring the Netherlands. Taking over 30 years to complete, the project with the intention to help cushion the impacts of storm surges on the coast and protect the coastal Dutch. The construction of the Delta Works system was promoted by the horrific hurricane-level flooding that broke down various coastal dikes in 1953, an event that cost over 1,500 people their lives. Thus, the Delta Works system was thought up as a solution to reduce the impacts of such events and keep people safe. Created by connecting large concrete pillars, weighing in around 18 million tons each, the storm surge barrier we toured could be opened and closed depending on how high the sensors indicated the water to be at. If the water rose to 9 feet or higher above the designated standard water height for the Netherlands, then the flood gates would immediately close, blocking the onslaught of North Sea waves. Each of the barriers is strategically placed along different delta inlets along the coasts in order to best reduce damages from hurricanes and intense weather, which is worsening due to climate change. These barriers are placed in an attempt to reduce inland flooding as much as possible. Although this system was originally projected to last around 200 years, global warming and climate change have intensified weather events and thus moved that timeline up quite a bit. 

In terms of sustainability, I personally was conflicted on whether or not such practices are considered sustainable for the environment versus a win for humans. The practice of land reclamation, which is the establishing of dikes, flushing the water out from one side, and using that fertile land as farmland, is not necessarily environmentally sustainable. Another key takeaway of mine is that the storm surge barriers constructed to protect coastal citizens took an incredibly long time and required an unreasonable amount of concrete and demolition. Rocks and rubble to pack the sides of the pillars were imported from quarries in surrounding countries, as the relatively flat Netherlands has no such quarries. Also, hundreds of thousands of tons of cement was poured into the pillars, a notoriously terrible material in terms of environmental sustainability. Although the barriers were not necessarily a negative in terms of habitat destruction, as they can allow natural tides to rise and fall, encouraging natural sea life and plant behavior, I would not consider them to be an environmental positive either. Regardless of their level of environmental sustainability, the Delta Works as a whole and specifically the storm surge barriers, are an incredible feat of engineering which highlight many fundamental truths of building, such as principal mechanics and the force of nature