Infrastructurally designed landscape

This week’s topic of Engineering the Environment made me think a lot about my trip to the Netherlands this past fall. Before visiting, I knew about the windmills and the canals and had heard that it had historically built dikes and dams here and there to maintain its land. So I was fascinated to learn (from the BAC tour guide extraordinaire, Ivan) that almost the entire landscape of the country is artificial - a result of unfathomable engineering feats. It’s really quite difficult for me to wrap my head around the fact that their urban and rural ecosystems are thriving on a large swath of land that was once underwater.

Though the artificial Dutch landscape makes for ideal agricultural land, it’s cool to see how its urban areas have been constructed to operate with water. Canals in place like Amsterdam and Delft serve infrastructural purposes, but give the cities such a lively character, beauty, and opportunity. Many of its residents live in houseboats in the city center and have even established new, vibrant houseboat neighborhoods.

I saw a lot of parallels between the Netherlands and Louisiana. Their landscapes are both vastly flat, marshy, and are required to manage an abundance of water (although the Netherlands doesn’t have the reptiles and Louisiana sadly doesn’t have windmills). Louisiana has always been flood-prone, but now it’s starting to lose land at an increasingly rapid pace due to sea level rise. And, fifteen years later, the southern part of the state is still recovering from the damage caused by Katrina.

A lot of pessimists believe that south Louisiana is simply becoming unlivable, which makes me sad to hear given the rich history and cultural identity in New Orleans. So many people are proud to call it home, and its welcomed a lot of newcomers within the past decade. But if the landscapes of the Netherlands can exist – and even be some of the most desirable countries to live in – it seems like the same could happen in Louisiana if the state would be willing to undergo the drastic engineering measures taken by the Netherlands. And who knows, maybe one day the oil rigs could be replaced with windmills.