PRECIPITATION | Neerslag

Entry for the IJSSELBIENNALE 2017 edition with the theme “climatic changes”.

Here in the Netherlands, we notice climate change mainly through changes in the nature and amount of precipitation, either a lot at once or prolonged drought.

Our landscape has been shaped naturally by previous (naturally caused) climate changes, the ice ages. Precipitation in all its forms has always been the shaping force of the landscape, with its moraines, glacial basins, river delta, river dunes, floodplains and breakthrough holes. Current climate change is attributed to human influences. The flood channel in the IJssel Valley is (one of our) responses to this climate change and is a radical landscape change that has also been caused by our actions.

The IJssel Biennale coincides with the summer months, the period in which we seem to notice the effects of climate change most strongly. It rains more heavily and in larger quantities at once, temperatures are extreme and we are expected to experience longer periods of drought, such as in the summer of 2018.

Together with the remainder of the Werverdijk, the Kromme Kolk forms the pièce de résistance of the Veessen Wapenveld flood channel. Like a “watchful eye”, it directs our gaze southwards and shows at a glance how the IJssel valley is enclosed between the moraines of the Veluwe and Salland. In the same direction, we see the Veessen Wapenveld flood channel sandwiched between two dykes.