Today we toured one of the most important sites of engineering in the Netherlands, The Deltaworks. The Deltaworks are a dam that can be opened and closed when water is needed. The project was started because of a massive flood in the 1950s that killed thousands of Dutch people. The Deltaworks took 30 years to complete, and now the Netherlands is much more well protected against sudden, massive storms. The reason they built such a complicated project instead of building a dam that blocked all water flow is because the fisherman on the inner part of the Netherlands would be unable to fish if there isn’t new water flowing in.

The Deltaworks display a constant problem in the Netherlands. Since a large portion of the country is below sea level, the fear of flooding is constant. If any dam or dyke were to fail, it could mean millions of dollars of damage, and possibly lives lost as well. Over the history of the Netherlands, there have been many floods which have killed and damaged towns and cities. As climate change gets worse, we must consider how to protect cities in the US from the same fate as the Netherlands. Unless we make some changes as a planet, many people could lose their homes.