美国国家公共电台 NPR Protecting The Netherlands' Vulnerable Coasts With A 'Sand Motor'

Protecting The Netherlands' Vulnerable Coasts With A 'Sand Motor'

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

The aftermaths of storms like Harvey and Irma has left coastal 1 areas puzzling over how to manage flooding. Across the Atlantic in the low-lying Netherlands, the masters of water management are thinking beyond dams and dikes as they plan for climate change. Joanna Kakissis discovered they're experimenting with a surprisingly simple tool.

(SOUNDBITE OF SEAGULLS SQUAWKING)

JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE 3: On the western coast of the Netherlands, kite surfers ride the waves off a giant sandbar that juts 4 deep into the North Sea. This sandbar is not just the postcard-pretty place for beachcombers and seagulls. It's also a flood prevention tool. It's called the Sand Motor.

(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The Sand Motor, an artificial peninsula designed to nourish the Delfland coast for the coming 20 years.

KAKISSIS: This informational video explains that the peninsula was created six years ago with tons of sand dredged from the sea.

(SOUNDBITE OF CRASHING WAVES)

KAKISSIS: The ocean currents sweep the sand from the peninsula into protective barriers that stretch 12 miles along the coast. The shoreline erodes 5 easily. It's replenished 6 every five years. But engineer Jasper Fusilier, who worked on the Sand Motor, says that won't be enough with the changing climate.

JASPER FUSILIER: We see, because of sea level rise, that, probably, we have to increase nourishment 7 of the shoreline.

KAKISSIS: That's where the Sand Motor comes in.

FUSILIER: Creates wider beaches. Wider beaches stimulates 8 natural formation of dunes 10. The dunes will get bigger. That will give more safety in the end.

KAKISSIS: Safety from the perpetual threat of floods in a country built extensively on reclaimed 11 wetlands. Dutch developers are also planning for rising seas.

MARNIX DE VOS: It's almost a normal thing now to do.

KAKISSIS: Marnix De Vos is an urban designer in Rotterdam.

DE VOS: Like, before, it was normal to put a street. Well, now it's normal to make a sustainable living area that does something with the protection against the raising water levels.

KAKISSIS: Dunes manage flooding. But he says they can also elevate low-lying areas.

DE VOS: So we say, well, why don't we combine water defense 12 with a very beautiful landscape to live in.

KAKISSIS: De Vos and the Rotterdam architecture firm ZUS are testing out that idea in a new housing development near Almere, a suburb of Amsterdam about an hour east of the Sand Motor. ZUS architect Jos Hartmann explains that this area was actually underwater until the 1960s, when the Dutch reclaimed it after building a seawall.

JOS HARTMANN: When it started up, it was kind of the big farm field of Holland. Like, you had super-nutrient-rich agriculture land here. You had a lot of space.

KAKISSIS: Most of the land is flat and sits below sea level, but not the new neighborhood called Duin. Hartmann leads me up a path made of seashells. There's this hill with grass on it, but it's a sand dune 9, isn't it?

HARTMANN: Yeah. It's a sand dune. Yes. Yes. Two and a half million cubic meters of sand. It was all brought by boat here.

(SOUNDBITE OF WOODEN WIND CHIMES RATTLING)

KAKISSIS: Wooden wind chimes hang outside a row of elegant brick homes. The artificial dunes raised these homes up to 10 meters above sea level, which means resident Marian Voigt can see over the dike 2 and enjoy views of the nearby lake.

MARIAN VOIGT: It looks like you're in a vacation (laughter) resort, yeah.

KAKISSIS: And elevating lowlands with sand has one more benefit. The dunes absorb heavy rainfall and actually purify the water through natural filtration. For NPR News, I'm Joanna Kakissis in Almere, The Netherlands.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOULU'S "THE GAME")