January 16, 2021

Sailing from Rotterdam to Amsterdam (time-lapse video)

Filed under: Architecture,Film,History,Nature,Photography by Branko Collin @ 4:22 pm

In 2013 Shell had to transport an eight-story metal building from Rotterdam to Amsterdam.

They hired a company called The Timewriters to create a time-lapse video of the transport, which has now been released in glorious 4K format on YouTube, accompanied by a beautiful, if somewhat ill-fitting Dvořák piece.

The day-long journey begins on the Nieuwe Maas river near the Feijenoord neighbourhood in Rotterdam, then goes past Gouda, Alphen aan de Rijn and Schiphol Airport to end in Amsterdam. If it hadn’t been dark by then, you might even have been able to see my house at 9:14.

This is worth watching for the bridges alone.

And then you come back a second time for the places you know and a third time to figure out how and why the Dutch created their environment the way they did.

Also check out the comments on YouTube, lots of insights from people who recognise certain types of trains, planes and places.

(Source: YouTube / The Timewriters)

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November 7, 2019

Tom Scott visits Waterloopbos, a former open air laboratory to study the way water flows

Filed under: Nature,Science,Sustainability,Technology by Branko Collin @ 7:56 pm

YouTuber Tom Scott visited the Waterloopbos in Marknesse in the Noordoostpolder and had a little chat with Leo van Rijn, a specialist in modelling the flow of watercourses.

As wiki says: “The Waterloopbos [literally ‘Watercourse Forest’] was the property of Delft Hydraulics […]. In 35 large scale models of sea arms and harbours, such as the Deltaworks and the harbour of Lagos, tests were performed in order to learn how to predict the way large hydraulic systems influence the course of water.”

The laboratory closed in 1995 and the forest is now owned by Natuurmonumenten and is open to visitors from sunrise to sunset (Dutch). It is part of the Voorsterbos, the oldest forest in Flevoland, a province that was entirely reclaimed from the water.

Read more about Waterloopbos at Holland.com.

(Photo: screen capture of a video by Tom Scott / Youtube)

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January 17, 2015

Scientist predicts more river floods in the Netherlands

Filed under: Nature,Science by Branko Collin @ 7:33 pm

maas-near-steyl-martin-collin

University of Twente writes:

In the future, due to climate change and corresponding extremely high water levels, rivers in the Netherlands will be more likely to break their banks. This was the conclusion reached by Dutch researcher Suleyman Naqshband […]. River dunes in the major rivers of the Netherlands tend to persist and not flatten out, thereby increasing the risk of flooding.

River dunes in this case is the somewhat unfortunate name for sand structures at the bottom of the river. Apparently they are quite common in Dutch rivers. The university adds:

These river dunes can reach large sizes, growing to as much as one third of the total water depth. This restricts the flow of water, causing water levels in the area of river dunes to be much higher than in sections of the river in which they are absent. River dunes are also dynamic, growing rapidly in just a few days then flattening out or even disappearing completely at extremely high flow rates.

(Photo of the river Meuse overflowing in 1980: Martin Collin)

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February 18, 2013

How to build bigger floodplains

Filed under: Nature,Sustainability by Branko Collin @ 1:08 pm

‘Room for the River’ is a Dutch state project that intends to widen the floodplains of the major rivers.

The project does something that is quite rare for the Dutch, it gives land back to the water. In 1993 and 1995 we had major river floods, the latter even leading to the evacuation of 250,000 people. Geographically, the Netherlands is a river delta, and the Dutch have always had to live with river floods. However, today the population pressure has made the consequences of floods much more expensive.

As the project website says: “The rivers are wedged between increasingly higher dikes behind which more and more people live. At the same time, the land behind the dikes has sunk. It is also raining more often and harder, causing rivers to swell. Water levels are rising and so is the chance of floods with a large impact on people, animals, infrastructure and the economy.”

The New York Times has visited one of those projects and uses it for an opinion piece on how big government is good.

Short read: The Ruimte voor de Rivier site has Nine easy infographics on how to give the river room.

(Photo: Waal beach by Rijkswaterstaat / Ruimte voor de Rivier / Martin van Lokven)

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January 21, 2013

Fireman saves 65 coffee containers by putting foot in ship’s leak

Filed under: Food & Drink by Branko Collin @ 9:18 am

Last Friday a diver of the Schoonhoven fire department saved millions of Dutch people a few jittery hours when he put his foot against the wall of a ship carrying coffee to stop water from flowing in.

The captain of the river boat Salamanca had noticed on Thursday evening that his boat, which was moored to the quay, was suddenly deeper in the water, Schuttevaer reports. When the fire brigade arrived the engine room was already flooded by a metre. The boat was moved to another location where fire trucks could get near it.

The hole turned out to measure about 5 by 2 centimetres. One of the divers who had entered the engine room to place the suction tube plugged the hole temporarily by placing his foot on it.

The Salamanca was transporting 65 containers filled with coffee. It is unknown how the boat sprung a leak.

The Dutch are among the most enthusiastic coffee drinkers in the world, consuming 8.4 kilograms per person a year. Only the Scandinavians drink more.

(Photo by Vitaly Volkov, some rights reserved)

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