Today was the long-awaited day we got to visit the Delta Works, the Netherlands’ large-scale flood-prevention system.  After waking up and eating breakfast, we headed over to Deltapark Neeltje Jans, a location along a Delta Works storm-surge barrier dedicated to teaching more about the Delta Works and its history.  After we left the bus and briefly explored the facility, our guide began describing the Delta Works.  While on this tour, we learned that the Delta Works combines a mix of thirteen dams, dikes, and storm-surge barriers that aim to prevent mass flooding.  He also mentioned something which stuck out to me from a sustainability perspective.  When going outside to visit the storm-surge barrier, he pointed out a few wind turbines, mentioning that they include sensors to stop the turbines if birds ever fly near, saving 10,000 a year.  Having this feature enables greater sustainability from a biodiversity perspective, as you are actively saving the lives of birds while still generating energy, protecting and prolonging the ecosystem. It also made me wonder how much energy those sensors consume every year, whether they use the wind turbines’ energy or fossil fuel, and, due to blades needing to be shut off periodically for birds, what is their efficiency?  Our guide also touched on how the Delta Works came to be.  He mentioned that due to a massive storm from the North Sea in 1953, many dikes were destroyed, flooding water-adjacent areas.  It was this historical event that started the Delta Works plan, which was completed a few decades later.  While I heard about this event, it sounded like it occurred for a similar reason to the New Orleans flood, an event in the United States when Hurricane Katrina destroyed the levees around the city of New Orleans and flooded it.

Once our tour concluded and a quick boat tour of the area, we were given free time for the rest of the day to explore the Delta Works.  Given the free time, I did a whole plethora of activities, including watching a seal show, visiting an aquarium, and visiting a storm simulator.  Two hours later, we got back on the bus to the hotel, after which I had dinner and headed to my room to do some work.  Overall, today gave me the opportunity to see the Delta Works, a civil engineering marvel, and learn about the history that led to its creation.