![]() The Zandmotor, or Sand Motor, is popular among kitesurfers as well as traditional surfers. Wind, waves and currents do work that would otherwise require a repeated process of dredging, dumping and spreading with tractors and other heavy machinery along several miles of coastline. ![]() By design and over time, the project relies on natural forces to be the “motor” that spreads the sand along 13 miles of coast, adding about 3,500 acres of new beach and dunes as it does so. I hope they don’t change it.”īut change is happening with every wave and puff of wind. “I thought they were dropping sand off for something else and they never came back. “I thought this was an accident,” Vijverberg said. Water Ways, Episode 2: A Culture of Experimentation Leads To Creative Solutions. Called the Zandmotor, or Sand Motor in English, the project is the world’s largest experiment in coastal storm and flood defense at a time when climate change is causing seas to rise and storms to intensify. During the summer, the hook-shaped peninsula draws thousands of walkers, sunbathers and surfers - both the kite and traditional varieties.īut the goal of this monumental, $55 million sandscaping project was protection, not recreation. About 28 million cubic yards of sand - enough to fill the Mercedes-Benz Superdome six times - was dredged from the seafloor and piped here, forming a lagoon and pushing the beach about a half-mile into the North Sea. The Dutch government made this stretch of coast a magnet for kiteboarders and other beachgoers a few years ago when it dropped off an immense pile of sand. ![]() ![]() “I have to come two, three times a week.” “It’s addictive,” Vijverberg says, emerging from the water with a red face and the sniffles. Nearby, other kiteboarders catch gusts strong enough to fling their wetsuited bodies several feet into the air. TER HEIJDE, The Netherlands - With a surfboard strapped to his feet and the reins of a giant kite in his hands, Daan Vijverberg skims over whitecaps on the Netherlands’ windy south coast. This is the second installment of a Times-Picayune and Advocate series exploring how the Netherlands’ climate change adaptation strategies could be a model for the Louisiana coast. ![]()
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