Today we went into the city of Enschede to learn about the city and also explore on our own. We began by taking a tour through various parts of the city that focused on the water management issues the city faces and their solution.
He first gave an introduction to the history of Enschede and explained that it had a prominent textile industry in the 19th and 20th centuries. Textiles require tremendous amounts of water, so when the city shifted away from this industry, there was a surplus of water. This is why Kristalbad is so important towards the water management of the area. I discussed Kristalbad in a previous post, but as a recap, it is a natural water retention and treatment area with lots of wildlife and greenery.
Our tour guide explained that Enschede has a large elevation difference which results in water running off from the higher areas to the lower areas of the city. While this elevation difference is nowhere close to Pittsburgh’s elevation, in the Netherlands it is pretty substantial. Due to this runoff that occurs, Enschede has faced significant flooding issues in the past. A few years ago, a flooding event occurred that resulted in a meter of sewage water flooding into around 80 homes. This caused them to become uninhabitable and forced the people that lived there to move.
To combat this issue, they’ve created openings and dips in the curb so that water can flow into the grass rather than stay on the street. Additionally, they’ve turned areas that used to be asphalt into grass, which helps absorb water and prevent flooding. The image below is an example of this:
After the tour, we had the rest of the day to explore Enschede on our own. We walked around the food market that was in the main square and tried several different things including Vietnamese loempias and Dutch Poffertjes, which are essentially delicious mini pancakes with powdered sugar and other toppings! Afterwards, we ended up spending an insanely long time at a video game store where I bought a Metal Gear Solid game. Then, we went to a cd/vinyl store where I bought a few cds including a random German darkwave album and one of my favorite albums of all time- Goo by Sonic Youth.
Twente happened to have a student relay race happening today called Batavierenrace. It’s actually the world’s largest relay race, and as a result there’s a big festival afterwards (Batavierenfeest). We ended the day by going to the festival where there was food and live music. This was definitely one of my favorite days so far- I had lots of fun and ate so much good food!