Dr. Leopoldo Llinas visits the Netherlands

This summer, Dr. Leopoldo Llinas visited the Netherlands with support from The Patrick H.F. Robert’s Global Learning Endowment Fund. The Netherlands is acknowledged as a global reference for water management in terms of ensuring protection from floods and ensuring freshwater supply. Dr. Llinas explored this topic with the hope to share this information with the community to protect Miami-Dade County from the stronger storms and higher seas of the future.

Café de Sluyswacht can be found along the De Oude Schans canal in Amsterdam. Built in 1695, it was home to Sluyswacht, the man who controlled the nearby St Anthony’s Locks. The locks were constructed in 1602 for the dual purpose of defending Amsterdam and to control the flow of water from the Amstel river through the city. The first known view of the locks is a drawing by Rembrandt van Rijn, the world-famous Dutch painter, who had his home and studio on the opposite side of the square from the Café de Sluyswacht.

 

The canals of Amsterdam were built during the Golden Age, when the population grew beyond its medieval walls. The Amsterdam Canal District is a masterpiece of hydraulic engineering and urban planning that artificially created a large-scale port city. UNESCO listed these waterways as a World Heritage in 2010. Today, Amsterdam has 165 canals and 1753 bridges - more than any other city in the world. The canals still play an important role in maritime traffic, especially for tourist purposes. 

 

Waterland is a municipality located north of Amsterdam. Almost half of this region is water, with thousands of small canals, rivers, many ‘polders’ (reclaimed land areas), green pastures, winding dikes and working windmills. Dr. Leopoldo Llinas took a bike tour of the area to see the techniques to drain wetlands and make them usable for agriculture and other development.

 

 

The Delta Works is a series of construction projects in the southwest of the Netherlands to protect a large area of land against future floods. Constructed between 1954 and 1997, the works consist of dams, sluices, locks, dykes, levees, and storm surge barriers. Dr. Leopoldo Llinas visited a few of these works including the Maeslantkering, a storm surge barrier that automatically closes when the Port of Rotterdam is threatened by floods. The Maeslantkering has two 689 feet long barrier gates, with two 778 feet long trusses holding them. It is one of the largest moving structures on Earth,

 

Utrecht University is a public research university in Utrecht, Netherlands. Established in 1636, it is one of the oldest universities in the Netherlands and widely regarded as one of the most prestigious universities in the world. During his visit Dr. Leopoldo Llinas met with Dr. Tatiana Acevedo Guerrero, a professor at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University. They discussed the interactions between urban water flows, infrastructure, and communities, in the context of rapid unplanned growth and uneven development in cities around the world including Barranquilla, Colombia, and Miami, United States.