Urban Resilience in a Changing Climate - Excursion

Today the students of the master course Urban Resilience in a Changing Climate had an excursion organized by the municipality Enschede (thank you, Koen Wagelaar!) and facilitated by the Saxion University for Applied Sciences.

Our first stop was at Saxion for Koen's presentation on Enschede's situation and measures taken and planned.

We then go to see the climate square, designed by students and with a weather station as well as a temperature sensor (https://ruuvi.com/ruuvitag-pro/). The weather station includes the equipment:

• Vaisala WXT536
• Kipp & Zonen CMP3 pyranometer
• Eltek AQ110 Air-Quality sensor
• Eltek GS44H (voltage logger)
• Apogee SL-510/610-SS
  

This in contrast to the weather station to be applied at LILa, which can be found here: https://metergroup.com/products/atmos-41/.

The climate square has several lower lying areas capable of storing water (wadis), and we got to see these across Enschede as well. 

The market square had some stationary and mobile green infrastructure. Given the activities on market days, finding space for trees is a challenge but the mobile containers can contribute a bit.

 

 

One area where an older building was demolished now has several trees planted, rather than erecting a new highrise building. 

 

 

 

Enschede has several wadis installed around the main streets and wherever else possible, as every drop counts. These are lower lying areas with vegetation that can temporarily store water and help delay it reaching the sewers. 

 

 

The street running next to the municipal government office is quite steep, so to add wadis without causing more floods was an additional challenge. The wadis have different vegetation not just for biodiversity but to help catch water, whereas the shapes of the wadis are designed to runoff excess water into the sewage channels through the gutters.