Eco wins: A Dutch gym for crops, a climate-ready city and a beaver comeback
Dutch crops hit the "climate gym," a German city is constructing for more extreme weather, and beavers are restoring rivers across Europe. This week's eco wins are all about building for a changing climate.
The Netherlands, often dubbed the world's agricultural Silicon Valley, is pioneering innovative solutions to feed a growing global population with limited resources and facing climate uncertainties. In its state-of-the-art greenhouses, Dutch scientists employ cutting-edge technology and vast amounts of data to identify which crops will thrive in a changing climate.
In neighboring Germany, the city of Kiel has been hit by the most severe storm surge in over 150 years, highlighting the urgent need for climate-resilient infrastructure. To combat this, the city is exploring various strategies, including creating cool urban corridors, green facades, temporary flooding soccer pitches, and adjusting daily schedules to accommodate heat.
Meanwhile, in Egypt, wildlife photographers are being enlisted to capture images of sea turtles, aiding conservation efforts. Each turtle possesses distinctive facial markings akin to human fingerprints, enabling researchers to identify individuals and monitor their health. By detecting turtles recovering from injuries, authorities can divert boat traffic away from their locations, ensuring their protection.
Beavers, once hunted to near extinction for their fur, meat, and scent glands, are making a remarkable comeback. Over the past century, their populations have surged from around 1,500 in 1900 to an astonishing 1.5 million today across Europe. These aquatic engineers construct dams that serve multiple purposes: filtering pollutants from water, mitigating flooding, wildfire, and drought impacts, replenishing underground aquifers, and rejuvenating wetlands and rivers. Their presence is proving invaluable in restoring ecosystems from Spain to Russia.
Written by urgent.news from DW News's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — it may contain errors, so check the original before relying on it.
