Today we had a long day of traveling by bus to the city of Enschede to visit the University of Twente. Once arriving we really got to stretch our legs with a walking tour of the campus, which is a lot more similar to an american university campus than other schools in the Netherlands, and a hike to the Kristalbad water treatment project.

Kristalbad is a natural water treatment plant, inspired by similar initiatives in Sweden, and aims to act as water storage and filtration for the surrounding area. The Netherlands has always needed to focus on removing water since large portions of the country are below seawater, but now with the effects of climate change making precipitation in the summer months rarer they need to shift their focus to storing water to be diverted in to farmland later rather than just removal. In addition to less rain during hot summer months, the rest of the year can experience more precipitation than its used to, making flooding a large problem and increasing the need for water management projects.

The Kristalbad is once such management project, acting as somewhat of a reservoir. Runoff from farmland is able to flow into the Kristalbad, and then the water treatment portion of the project comes into effect. The plants in the Kristalbad were choses for their ability to remove phosephates from the water and make it safer for people and wildlife. A previous iteration of the project had attempted to use plants to remove heavy metals from the water but this has fallen through in the current day.

In addition to managing water, the Kristalbad turns the land it sits on back into a reclaimed wetland rather than the barren field that once sat there. While hiking around the perimeter we were able to see many types of ducks geese and even a swan floating in the water and swimming around in the reeds.