Water represents one of the biggest threats
posed by climate change.
That's because rising seas,
stronger storms,
and heavier rainfall
could massively increase flooding
by the end of the century.
It's already starting to happen
and it's very likely to get worse.
Catastrophic flooding in Western Europe
after violent storms
and powerful flood waters destroying entire towns.
It's easy to feel overwhelmed
looking at footage like this.
It seems like no one has any idea
what to do about this problem.
So, we're just going to see more and more damaging floods,
year after year.
But there is one place where it's possible to imagine
a very different future.
When you look at the city of Rotterdam,
the water is in our genes,
you could say.
We are already working for 1,000 years on this topic.
Keeping the water out
isn't a new challenge for the Netherlands.
It's a battle they've been fighting for centuries.
So, when the effects of climate change
started to crop up,
they were like, yeah, let's do this.
We're ready.
We traveled to Rotterdam
to find out how this city is getting ready for the future
and whether the ingenious stuff they've come up with
will ultimately be enough to save them
and hopefully the rest of us, too.
When you look at Holland or the Netherlands,
the name, the Netherlands,
already says that we are a low-lying country.
One-third of this country
is below sea level
and two thirds is vulnerable to flooding.
Back in the day,
the only things keeping the water at bay
were the dikes,
which are basically just raised mounds of earth.
Once every few decades,
the water would overwhelm the dikes
and cause catastrophic flooding
and that was just the way things were,
until one day in 1953,
all that suddenly changed.
In '53, it was a disaster.
A powerful storm struck the Southern Coast,
overwhelming dikes that had been badly damaged
in the second World War.
On the morning of February 1st, 1953,
Koos' father and brother
woke him up and told him what had happened.
In 1953, almost 2,000 people died
and that was the moment for us,
we said, this can never happen again.
This is time we started making our first barrier.
The flood galvanized the Dutch government
to build the world's most powerful flood defense system,
the Delta Works.
It was a series of modernized dams
and storm surge barriers
that took more than 40 years to complete.
And the final act of the Delta Works
is the barrier over here,
the Maeslant Barrier,
made to protect Rotterdam.
We're looking at the biggest movable
storm surge barrier in the world.
This is the same size as the Eiffel Tower.
So, you're looking at the Eiffel Tower laying on its side.
Most of the time,
the barrier stays open,
so ships can pass through.
When a storm comes along,
it snaps shut,
preventing the storm surge from traveling up river
and flooding Rotterdam.
The moveable design was radical
when it was completed in 1997
and it's inspired similar structures
in flood-prone cities around the world.
If you look at St. Petersburg in Russia,
a small version of this barrier has been made over there
and maybe in the future,
in front of Manhattan,
they're thinking about a way to protect that, also.
So, this was the first one
and now smaller versions
are coming all over the world.
But the barrier on its own
isn't enough to keep Rotterdam from flooding.
Talking about climate change,
we see an increase of more intensive rainfall.
We already are facing now and then,
small-scale flooding.
So, we need more places
where we can store this water.
Arnoud Molenaar
is also working to keep Rotterdam dry,
not by keeping the water out,
but by giving it a place to go.
This is the water square
and it is actually, you could say,
a symbol for our approach,
how to become climate adaptive.
So, under normal circumstances,
this square can be used as,
for example, a basketball field.
But on days like this,
it stores excess rainwater
and keeps it from flooding the streets.
So, it's a multifunctional solution.
We want to add quality to the urban space,
but in this way,
we are also adding water storage.
This is the first water square
that we have been developing,
but it's part of a bigger package of measures.
An interesting one close by here is
what we call the dakpark
or the rooftop park,
which is a kind of a long levy
of one kilometer
and on top of it, a huge green park.
It's storing excessive rain water,
because of the green roof.
Looking at the challenges related to climate change,
a lot of people think it's going to cost us
a lot of space and money
and we try to show that you also can use it
to work on a better city.
In some ways,
the Dutch are just as baffled as the rest of us
about climate change.
For one thing,
there's the question of what happens when sea levels rise
beyond a certain point?
The Maeslant Barrier was built to withstand
one meter of sea level rise
and a redesigned barrier
could potentially handle even more than that,
but there's only so much that even Dutch engineering can do.
Beyond two meters,
it's difficult.
We are working on new scenarios,
suppose it will be more than two meters,
four meters, five meters,
then what?
People ask me,
will you be moving on a certain
moment in time
to the higher grounds in the Netherlands?
I can't imagine that that will be a decision.
For survivors like Koos,
on the other hand,
it's not so hard to imagine the worst.
I think in 300 years,
Rotterdam will still be here,
but when the sea level will rise four or five meters,
we will have to find additional solutions.
Any idea what those would be?
Maybe on a larger scale,
invest in floating districts,
floating cities.
And that brings us to our final
and most radical solution.
My name is Koen Olthuis.
I'm a water architect.
For the last 15 years,
We've been building floating homes
in cities that face climate change
and sea level rise.
So, we have the floating home,
which has a floating foundation
and it can move up and down
with the fluctuation of the river,
but to keep it on one spot,
we have these kind of stilts.
The water will come up
and you will see that the house will move up, up, up, up
and if the water goes down,
it just guides it back.
100 years ago,
you see cities start to grow up with high-rise buildings,
because they saw the space in the air.
Well, we see the city has to grow in the water.
It's not only about houses.
It's about floating apartment buildings,
floating roads,
floating parks,
all the kind of urban components you need
to make your city more waterproof.
Who knows,
maybe someday, we'll all live in floating houses
or maybe something entirely new will come along.
Preparing for climate change is a tough challenge,
but for the innovators of Rotterdam,
it's a process of adaptation that never ends.
It's not finished, our project.
It keeps on going.
It's an ongoing process.
I feel safe.
My children will feel safe
and my grandchildren will also feel safe,
but after that, you have to think again.