Tagged: landscape

A new concrete bridge in a landscape with creeks and fields of wild flowers in the Noordwaard region in Biesbosch national park on a summer day

5. August 2019

Two Room for the River Projects in the Netherlands

The Room for the River program came into being after the Betuwe region and a number of other places in the Netherlands were almost flooded in the mid-1990s. The central idea was to prevent future flooding, not by the usual dyke reinforcements, but by digging new river channels and redesigning the floodplains. Also nature and recreation were supposed to be given new opportunities in these developments. Have those good intentions been implemented? Yes, they have. I’ve already written about the projects in Deventer and Nijmegen, for which I did some work myself. And this summer, I visited two other Room… Read More

The Drowned Earth: a world map as it looks after the ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica have melted, around 4000 AD

Cartography

25. May 2019

The Drowned Earth: 4000 AD, After The Thaw

What happens when all the polar ice melts? What would the world map look like after a maximum sea level rise? And how long does it take to get there? These are interesting questions now that climate change is – finally – on the political agenda. And as a cartographer, I could not resist the temptation to visualize the worst case scenario. Gravity When the Greenland ice sheet melts, the sea level rises 7 meters, when the ice melts in Antarctica it causes a rise of 58 meters. So together that makes 65 meters. But that is an average. Because… Read More

A rainbow behind Hallgrimskirkja, the iconic church in downtown Reykjavik, Iceland

Photography / Various

12. March 2019

Reykjavik in Winter

While Western Europe enjoyed a very early spring, travel companion A. and I spent a winter week in the capital of Iceland capital, Reykjavik. It was definitely not spring there yet, but unfortunately just not wintry enough either. There was ice on lakes, snow on the mountains, and here and there there were large heaps of snow in the street, but no fresh snow fell. Well, that means we’ll have to go back there once more. Metropolis There is something strange about Reykjavik. The city, including suburbs, has only 240,000 inhabitants, just as much as a town like Swansea. Which,… Read More

Wooden walkbridge through the tidal forest along the river Oude Maas near Ruigeplaatbos in the Rotterdam district of Hoogvliet

Photography

24. January 2019

Return to Hoogvliet

The Rotterdam district of Hoogvliet, located more than ten kilometers from the city center, is a boring suburb if ever there was one. I’ve spent the first 22 years of my life there. And I was not very enthusiastic about it, to put it mildly. A town with forty thousand inhabitants, but without a theater, a cinema or other forms of culture and nightlife. And with architecture from the disastrous decades of the sixties, seventies and eighties, which did not make me happy either. Roots I don’t visit Hoogvliet very often these days; there aren’t very many people I know… Read More

Almost abstract and multicolored image of the leaves of a sweet gum tree (liquidambar styraciflua) in autumn

Photography / Various

20. November 2018

Liquidambar Styraciflua, in Other Words: the Sweet Gum Tree

Oddly enough, I never really noticed them until the autumn of last year and now I suddenly see them everywhere: the sweet gum tree or liquidambar styraciflua. Time for a photographic tribute to the mother of all autumn trees. America The amber tree originates from the southeast of the United States, roughly from the New York – Houston – Orlando triangle. In addition styraciflua grows in higher altitudes in Central America. Chewing gum tree The English language has a lot of names for the liquidambar styraciflua. Quoting Wikipedia: American sweetgum or simply sweet gum tree, American storax, hazel pine, bilted, redgum,… Read More

Long straight road with a line of trees and a farm in the North East Polder in the Netherlands

Photography / Various

1. November 2018

Hiking in a Dutch Polder

The Noordoostpolder (North East Polder) is a relatively recent addition to the Netherlands. It used to be part of the former Zuiderzee estuary and has been dry land since 1942. With its long straight roads, the polder doesn’t seem like a perfect place for a day trip and certainly not like a great place to go hiking. But of course you’ll never know for sure if you don’t try it at least once. So on October 24, partner-in-crime A. and I travelled to the polder for a trip around three places of interest: Schokland, Nagele and Urk. Planning To go… Read More

A prunus tree, more specifically a Japanese cherry, in bloom in springtime near Unesco world heritage Van Nelle factory in Rotterdam

Photography

28. May 2018

Springtime in Rotterdam: Magnolia, Prunus, Robinia

For some photos the window of opportunity is very small. You have to be quick, otherwise your chance is over. Think, for example, of the increasingly rare photos of the city under a nice layer of snow. Or photos taken in the blue hour after sunset, when the circumstances change by the minute. Spring is another of those narrow windows. One moment the trees are still bare, a few days later they are full of blossoms and/or young leaves. And if you don’t act promptly, the spectacle is already over by the time you get your camera. Late Spring was a… Read More

A freshly fallen leaf of a sweetgum tree, red with some yellow, in the grass in autumn

Photography

10. December 2017

Looking Back at the Photographic Autumn of 2017

When does autumn begin and end? The answer depends on whether you ask an astronomer or a meteorologist. Equinox and solstice The astronomical autumn begins with the autumn equinox, the moment that day and night, everywhere on Earth, have the same length. Autumn ends with the winter solstice, better known as the shortest day. In 2017, autumn officially started on 22 September at 20.01 Central European Time; the end is scheduled for December 21, 16.18. Because the length of a year on our planet (and actually on almost every other planet) is not an exact number of days, the times… Read More

Artist impression of the High Line Baan, a park on the roof of Lijnbaan shopping center in Rotterdam

Visualisation

15. September 2017

From Tweet to Rooftop Park: the High Line Baan

Couldn’t those flat roofs of the shops on Lijnbaan, the pedestrian street in downtown Rotterdam, be turned into a roofpark? I made an artist impression and investigated the pros and cons of such a High Line Baan. Rooftop Days It started with a tweet. At 11 July, I placed a photo on my Twitter account, made during the Rotterdam Rooftop Days. It showed the city’s main shopping street, Lijnbaan, seen in southern direction from one of the adjacent apartment buidings. A remarkable strip of low-rise buildings in a city that’s proud to be the Netherlands’ highrise capital. With a roofscape… Read More

Snow-covered reed in the Hitland near Capelle aan den IJssel, The Netherlands

Photography

20. March 2017

Looking Back at the Winter of 2017

On Monday, March 20th, 2017 at 10:28 AM, GMT, spring begins in the northern hemisphere of planet Earth. It is the day of the vernal equinox, when day and night, anywhere on the globe, have more or less the same length. The beginning of spring, that’s a good time to look back at the winter of 2017. I know: it ain’t over till it’s over and also late March and April can have cold periods. But something tells me we’re not going te see a lot of wintry weather in the coming weeks. And should I be wrong, I will simply update this blog.… Read More