Today we took a private transfer to Delta Works! We specifically got to see the storm surge barrier (oosterscheldekering), but dams and dykes are also surrounding the Netherlands. The Oosterscheldekering consists of 62 steel gates that remain open until the water level is forecasted to be 3 meters above the Normal Amsterdam Level. The gates take 75 minutes to close after a button is pushed. This ensures the coastline is safe from extra water entering from the North Sea. This project took 10 years to make, stretching 9 kilometers across the water with each pillar weighing about 18,000 tons.

This is incredibily sustainable as preventing future floods leads to safer infrustructure, economic protection, community safety, and environment preservation. All of these factors connect to sustainabilities definition: the practice of maintaining ecological, social, and economic systems so that present needs are met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs. Not only this, but the oosterscheldekering planned to keep the gates permanently closed, but made them motorized to preserve the marine life on the shoreline. This encourages biodiversity in the water that would’ve been compromised.

At the Delta Works we got to enjoy lunch. A common breakfast food is sprinkles on buttered white bread. Our tour guide told us to try it so we did, and I honestly really liked it! Apparantly this was invented by the director of a liquorice company. During a hailstorm, he put white sprinkles on his bread because he thought they resembled the hail. This treat was then named hagelslag, with hagel meaning hail. It is now very popular around the Netherlands and is even eaten in other countries.