I was forwarded the following article on the Dutch city of Nijmegen not only engineering to combat flooding but also using that engineering (and planning) to literally build a new city core as well.
An extract from CityLab:
A Dutch City Makes Room for Its River and a New Identity
Nijmegen is turning a flood-control project on the River Waal into an opportunity to redevelop its inner core.
NIJMEGEN, The Netherlands — In this city along the River Waal, this year marks the 20th anniversary of a scary event that quite nearly turned into a catastrophe.
Heavy rains upstream in France and Germany, where the river is known as the Rhine, sent a surge of water toward Nijmegen. The city of 170,000 people is protected by dikes. But as the waters rose and fear built that the dikes would break, many people and cattle in and around Nijmegen evacuated. Luckily, the dikes held, and after several harrowing days, the water level dropped again.
There’s two reasons why. First, Nijmegen is not simply raising or strengthening its dikes, which might seem like the obvious solution. Instead, it is moving some dikes back from the river, essentially creating a much wider floodplain. Into that floodplain, excavators and cranes are carving a new channel for the River Waal. That channel is broadening the river—and giving future floodwaters more room to flow without threatening the city.
The second reason is that all this engineering work is creating a whole lot more than flood control. Construction of the new channel also means that a new island is being made in the middle of the Waal. The island’s elevation is high enough in some spots that it will be possible to construct a whole new section of the city here, along with parks and nature areas.
Meanwhile, a new neighborhood is rising across the river from the city center, bringing some balance to the urban development on both sides of the river. And four new bridges are being built, connecting the new island to both sides of the river. When it is all done, Nijmegen will have a new urban heart in the middle of the very river that has occasionally threatened its existence.
“For the first time,” says Alderman Bert Velthuis, “the city center will actually be in the middle of the city.”
Never underestimate the Dutch in their creativity with planning and engineering. In saying that though they were quite amused and have taken up our own created term of #quaxing (in honour of our Dutch born Councillor Dick Quax) to recognise doing the shopping by active and public transport modes.
Talking Southern Auckland 