Editorial note: European Geography Association (EGEA) is the association for geography students all over Europe. As a member of Ibn Battuta, you are automatically a member of EGEA as well. Therefore, you can sign up for activities such as congresses, exchanges, group travels and all sorts of activities organized by the entities of each city that is involved. The EGEA Groningen entity organizes activities such as the yearly barbeque with exchange students and other Ibn’ers in September, and the occasional exchange where they host and visit students from another city. Within Ibn Battuta, the EGEA entity is treated as a committee instead of a board like in other cities.
It was in the autumn of 2012 when I left the Faculty of Spatial Sciences successfully and satisfied. I’d just completed my Master’s Thesis about coastal zone management and started to apply for a job. Not long after that I began an internship at Procap. Together with my fellow fresh FRW-alumnus Jeroen Bakker we looked into how the Dutch Wadden Islands could achieve their ambitious aims to be self-sufficient on sustainable energy in the near future. Partly, this topic got my interest because I grew up on the island of Ameland, where most of my relatives still live. The 3.500 inhabitants of this 59 km² sandbank are generally quite proud of their island identity and every now and then try to distance themselves from mainland influences. Despite the fact that I left the island more than ten years ago, I still feel very much like an “Amelander”. The internship was a good career start-up, but not a long-term option. So, in the meantime I was applying for jobs in the northwest of Germany. Unlike the North of the Netherlands, Germany had more job offers in urban planning at the time. Besides this, it was my girlfriend’s place of origin, which made the decision for this region a bit easier as well. I got appointed as an urban planner for the engineering firm Dr. Born – Dr. Ermel GmbH in the small town of Aurich, region Ostfriesland (‘Eastern Friesland’). Yes, in Germany there are areas called Friesland as well as it all once belonged to the ancient Frisian Kingdom. The people in Ostfriesland, however, nowadays speak a different language than the Dutch Frisians. The Easternfrisian dialect, Ostfriesisches Platt, sounds like a mix of Dutch, German, Groninger dialect and even a touch of Amelander dialect I’ve noticed. In hearing the Ostfriesisches Platt, it’s funny to find out how many similarities the Wadden region dialects have. As an urban planner, I developed land use plans for several municipalities in Ostfriesland. Aside from the German Building Code, which was a bit of a challenge at the beginning, the German planning process is quite similar to the Dutch one. However, the planning approach in the Eastern Frisian rural area didn’t much look like smart growth or compact planning, but was basically nothing less than the urban development of ‘greenfield’ farmland. Still, the complexity of the plans arose through strict water management regulations, protected landscape elements and all restrictions linked to the heaps of wind energy plants in Ostfriesland. Besides working on these projects, I also learned the ins and outs of land surveying. This often took me outside the office building for measuring ditches, ground surfaces, sewage covers, hedgerows, pavements, water retention basins, and even sewage treatment plants. I remember well doing land surveys in the scorching heat at the Lüneburger Heide, as well as in the pouring rain on the island of Borkum. Here I found the perfect combination of both desk- and fieldwork.
Land surveying for a water extension in a natural area.
After some years my girlfriend and I began to feel the limitations of living in a small town surrounded by rural areas. That’s why we decided to settle down in lively Groningen. I started working for the Cadastre, land registry and mapping agency (in Dutch: Kadaster) at the spatial planning department (in Dutch: Ruimte & Advies). The agency collects and registers administrative and spatial data on property and the rights involved. This also goes for ships, aircraft and telecom networks. Doing so, Kadaster protects legal certainty. We are also responsible for national mapping, e.g. topographic maps, and maintenance of the national reference coordinate system and parts of the national spatial data infrastructures. For decades, Kadaster has been sharing knowledge on land administration and geo-information with other countries.
Kadaster office in Groningen.
Traditionally, Ruimte & Advies used to support the national and regional government with land consolidation and reallotment. The exchange of land rights among land owners aims to deliver a sustainable development of rural areas by reducing land fragmentation in agriculture, expanding and connecting nature areas and to allocate land for water retention or new infrastructure among others. More recently, Ruimte & Advies has been working on land readjustment as a tool to improve liveability in urban areas, like shopping streets and business parks. Again, a participatory approach and the exchange of property rights constitute these spatial planning processes. For the agricultural water management programme (Deltaplan Agrarisch Waterbeheer) we work together with other government agencies, such as water boards, and the Dutch farmers’ association (LTO), to improve soil condition, water quality and water supply in rural areas. Our role herein is to facilitate the application for subsidy for projects under the agricultural water management programme. After some months contributing to these projects, I gained a lot of knowledge about agriculture, land administration, and land and water management in practice.
After years of being islander, studying in Groningen, visiting many places with EGEA, exploring the idyllic Ostfriesland, I’m now back in beautiful Groningen. “Home is where the heart is” doesn’t always have to be true. With Ameland still in my heart, Groningen feels like coming home.
Martinus Spoelstra
This article was first published in the First year edition (Year 49 of Girugten – issue 01 -september 2018). 
Picture 1: The Green/Blue Network of Groningen.
In his research, Allard Hans Roest, focused on the smallest form of urban green space, the garden, and the effects gardens have on the urban flood-resilience. The interest in this subject came to him in his previous home in Groningen, when he saw that all the water from the soil-sealed gardens in his vicinity flowed towards one sewage entry and wanted to know more about the effects gardens have on the sewage system and climate-scans in general. When he started to search for this subject on the internet, he found out that in the scientific sense gardens are still a relatively underrepresented subject of research . This while around 40% of all urban land is owned by private owners. In his research, he used the Semi-Automatic Classification Plugin QGIS in order to determine the land-use in gardens. Two main datasets were used in this classification, most importantly a high-resolution Aerial Photograph provided by the Municipality of Groningen and a satellite image of the city. Both of these datasets were analyzed, and only the image by the municipality of Groningen proved to be useful in determining land-use in gardens. The outcomes of these analyses were than used to gain a better under-standing in soil-sealing dynamics and effects for the city of Groningen, as well as in three case-study areas.
In his research, Allard found that most gardens in Groningen are mostly soil-sealed and have limited room for vegetation and water absorption (figure 1). This is due to a number of factors, including garden size and building density in neighbourhoods (figures 2 and 3). In the survey, it was found that most people do not take environmental impacts into account when designing a garden, mostly focusing on esthetics or ease.
Picture 2: Garden house per neighbourhood in Groningen.
Picture 3: Building density per neighbourhood in Groningen.
This extent of soil-sealing is problematic in a city like Groningen, where a large share of the sewage system is shared (figure 4). Meaning that both wastewater and rainwater are drained using the same infrastructure. In his research, it is concluded that in three different scenario’s, the capacity of the sewage system shifts from an extreme shower of 19.6 millimeters in an hour to more common rainfall, increasing the risks of flooding in both public as private space.
Picture 4: Water draining infrastructure in Groningen.
The conclusion of his research is that climate-adaptation and climate change are complex in nature and require an approach where both the general public as governmental organizations work together in order to increase resilience. But that this cooperation is not yet seen in planning practice, where governments often focus on large-scale projects to increase the drainage capacity and relies mostly on participatory approaches in order to stimulate greener gardens and the general public often looking towards the government to provide them climate-resilience rather than actively participating in climate-adaptation.
This article was published in the Northern Netherlands edition, May 2018.
Credit Pictures:
Picture 1 (and Top photo): Slagboom & Peeters (2016), Kadaster (2018), Gemeente Groningen (2017).
Picture 2: Slagboom & Peeters (2016), Kadaster (2018), Gemeente Groningen (2017) and edited by Geodienst.
Picture 3: Kadaster (2018), Gemeente Groningen (2017).
Picture 4: JenL Datamanagement (2017), Kadaster (2018), Gemeente Groningen (2017).
Sources:
Picture 1: Hongerige Wolf (Hungry Wolf). Source: below.
Speaking of things you never thought existed, the journey continues to Nooitgedacht, Groningen. The place that literally translates to “Never thought”. The reputation of people form the province of Groningen having a sober character really holds up here, it is commonly assumed that the place earned its name because nobody ever thought that people would found a town in a place that uninhabitable. Close to Nooitgedacht is the small village of Polen (Poland). The village consisting of just a handful of buildings, information about the origins of the name is not widespread. The only available explanation is that the town was in fact named after the country of Poland, because it felt so far away from other towns in the area that it might as well have felt as far away as being in another country (more than 500 kilometres away).
Continuing our journey in a westwards direction, we stumble upon the village of Doodstil, which translates to “Dead silence”. Given that just over a hundred people live there, that kind of makes sense. The village has, however, been celebrated as the place in the Netherlands with the most beautiful name in 2005. Although the election was won because of the promoted alternative interpretation of the name as “flawlessly silent” (volmaakt stil), the origin of the name is much less dark than one may expect. Dood is derived from a Frysian name, Doede or Doode, and the stil part of the name also turns out not to be about the low volume level, but as an old synonym for bridge, which boils the actual translation down to “Doede’s bridge”. If you want to impress some friends at the campfire this summer, you can also tell the dark theory about the name origin: Legends say that before there was a bridge, there was a ferry to cross the Boterdiep, which needed to transport a coffin to the other side one day. Due to an unknown cause, the ferry made a weird turn and the coffin fell into the water (you can add some more spooky stuff to spice things up from here). In order to prohibit something like this happening again, the people built a bridge. Time for some cof-fee.
Picture 2: Doodstil (Dead Silence); They already mentioning they do have the most beautiful place name in the Netherlands by themselves… Source: below.
The first stop after visiting the Coffee Room at Zernike is Amerika, Drenthe. Just like another Dutch town in Limburg bearing the same name, some people think the place was called Amerika because of the heather fields in the area. “Am erica” means something like “with the heather” in the spatial meaning of the word. The village being found in 1909 however, the explanation that the place earned it’s name because the heather fields and open spaces made the workers think of the plains in the United States is easier to believe. It is said that some of them also lived in similar shacks as the pioneers in the U.S. did back in the day.
Going further south, after briefly stopping in another town called Nooitgedacht, close to Hoogeveen, we find another notable example of a foreign sounding place name in the north of the Netherlands, Nieuw Moscou (New Moscow) in the province of Drenthe. Falling just one kilometre outside of the scope of this issue of Girugten, De Krim (Crimea) in the province of Overijssel can also be added to the list of (debatably) Russian place names. Although nobody knows for sure, it is commonly stated that these places (located in close proximity to each other) were named their names during the Crimea war of the 1850s.
Other honourable mentions were De Veenhoop (The PeatPile), Moddergat (Muddy hole), Kleine Huisjes (Little homes) and Zoutkamp (Salt Camp). This tour only scratches the surface of all weird and interesting place names in the Netherlands. Next time you’re bored, get yourself a cup of tea, a good chair, your atlas of choice and a magnifying glass. There’s plenty left to explore!
This article was published in the Northern Netherlands edition, May 2018.
Top photo: by Author, 2018.
Source Picture 1:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/18/Hongerige_Wolf_vanaf_brug.jpg
CC-BY-SA 4.0 By: Handscarf, 9th of september 2010, Wikipedia Commons
Source Picture 2:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f5/Doodstil.jpg
CC-0 By: Gouwenaar 29th of march 2011, Wikipedia Commons 
Figure 1: A (greatly) simplified visualization of a hydrogen-dominated energy supply system. This illustration is meant to show how hydrogen might function as an energy carrier, where it comes from under sustainable circumstances and how cross-dimensional hydrogen use works. Important: In reality, a simple system like this is highly unlikely to evolve on a large scale. Source: Author
Of course, there is another issue related to natural gas extraction as well. During the summer of 2015, 175 governments from all over the world decided in Paris that CO2 emissions must be significantly reduced in order to prevent the disastrous conse-quences of climate change. Fossil fuels are the most important contributor to CO2 emissions and thus the use of these fuels has to be eliminated wherever possible. Although the need for a sus-tainable alternative to the fossil-based energy supply system is now widely understood and all necessary technology is available, there still are some issues connected to this unbelievably big challenge. Firstly, renewable energy production is dependent on meteorological and geographical characteristics of a place. Secondly, renewable energy requires storage mechanisms for periods when energy demand exceeds energy supply. These issues can only be overcome by experimenting and doing. Thirdly, the fact that it is technically possible does not mean the energy transition is economically desirable, as it involves significant investments in infrastructure and new appliances. And, what to do with all the infrastructure we have built to transport fossil-based energy carriers? Serious challenges, which need to be addressed before the energy transition can really take off.
Figure 2: Spatial visualization for a hydrogen economy in the Northern Netherlands as outlined in the report Green Hydrogen Economy in the Northern Netherlands by the Northern Innovation Board. Source: edited and translated after Northern Innovation Board (NIB, 2017).
Firstly, hydrogen can function as an easily transportable storage carrier for excess supply of renewable electricity by water electrolysis (a chemical process by which water is split into hydrogen gas and oxygen gas). This gas can be stored underground, in empty salt caverns or natural gas fields, and used whenever necessary to feed hydrogen boilers or fuel cells. Fuel cells are devices that transform hydrogen into electricity by exposing it to oxygen from the air that feed an electromotor. Secondly, hydrogen can relatively easily be transported by using the already existing natural gas network. This takes away the need to remove those pipelines and reduces the amount of money that needs to be invested in high-capacity electricity networks. A characteristic unique to hydrogen is that it can even be exchanged between different energy consuming entities: the hydrogen that comes from your future pipeline to heat your future house can also be used to drive your future fuel cell car and vice versa. You can even produce it yourself by having solar panels on your future roof with a reversible fuel cell in your future fuse box! The illustration below visualizes such a possible system.
Although this might sound as a gift from heaven, unfortunately there are some serious challenges as well for such a hydrogen-driven economy. Firstly, it is important to realise that hydrogen is not a source of energy; it has to be produced from other energy sources (like wind power, solar power, hydropower, biomass or fossil fuels) and this will always involve a net efficiency loss.
To do that in a sustainable way and to accommodate this efficiency loss, the capacity for renewable electricity production needs to increase dramatically. Secondly, such a fundamentally different energy carrier for the entire economy requires a lot of investments in new infrastructure (hydrogen fuel stations), vehicles (fuel cell cars, planes, ships, etcetera), devices (hydrogen boilers and stoves) and storage locations.
Conclusion
Although there are serious challenges for the emergence of a hydrogen-based economy, it is a promising alternative that is definitely worth considering. Last year, the Northern Innovation Board (a platform of regional governments, influential companies and scientists) gave it a kick-off and since then, the first concrete steps became visible. Hydrogen fuel stations slowly start to open around the country, the first hydrogen-fueled buses became operational in Groningen and we are now exploring the first possibility to use hydrogen for heating purposes in a neighborhood in the city of Hoogeveen. Figure 2 shows an idea for how such a system might look like. This is a very exciting development, in which small steps possibly function as the first seeds for a transition towards a fundamentally different and sustainable energy supply system. An opportunity for the Northern Netherlands as well, to show its strong position in the energy sector once again by converting problems into opportunities!
This article has been written in response to my Masters’ thesis for the Environmental and Infrastructure Planning Masters’ programme. This masters’ thesis explores the institutional possibilities for facilitating hydrogen energy within the energy transition for the built environment in the Netherlands and is being written in collaboration with Royal HaskoningDHV. Are you interested in how hydrogen energy fits within the larger challenge of the energy transition? Please contact the author of the article!
This article was published in the Northern Netherlands edition, May 2018.
Top photo: Fuel cell car. Source: Wikimedia Commons 
Figure 2: Legimated elephant path in Groningen. Source: Author.
This article was published in the Northern Netherlands edition, May 2018.
Top photo: by Author, 2018. 
Figure 1: Interviewee Gossen Rijkenboer (Author, 2018)
Circular economy
The aim of Westerzwam is to tell the story of the circular economy and its benefits. A circular economy is based on the principle of the optimal use and reuse of material in the production chain. For the Netherlands this can create new jobs, less import and less pollution.
To become a part of the circular economy, there has to be a drastic change in the system. A main key point is to think differently about a process or product. Such a new kind of thinking, has been implemented by Westerzwam. The most important characteristic is chain collaboration. Westerzwam needs cooperation with other growers, with the suppliers of the coffee grounds and with the buyers of the mushrooms. Even farmers are part of this chain collaboration. After the oyster production, the remaining of the coffee grounds will be brought to farmers. The farmers use the remaining as fertilizer on the meadows. In the end, there is almost no waste.
However, there is a paradox in circular economies. The paradox is between inventing your own business model and teaching others about your vision. Take for example Westerzwam. They are committed to teach the concept of producing oyster mushrooms to interested people. They offer guided tours, workshops, a grow kit for households and a training at schools. They even deliver complete mobile container nurseries. In addition, a nursery will start soon at AOC Terra in Meppel, a practical school that works according to the concept of ‘learning of the region’. However, the consequence is that you have to be innovative and be able to change to stay progressive, because others know detailed information about your business model
We have to go forward
The given paradox is not a point of concern according to Rossen. On the contrary, he has concerns about the cities in the North of the Netherlands, because more and more young people go to the bigger cities. As a consequence, the small cities become empty. According to him, the circular economy can offer a solution to this problem. By investing their time and energy in the circular economy on local scale, they hope the amount of movers to the bigger cities will decrease and become as much part of the city as they used to be. Production and sales are locally facilitated which will create jobs. If the idea of having bicycle highways between cities in the northern of the Netherlands will be substantiated, a quick deliverance on local scale will become more easy. By taking a step back, the circular economy will be stimulated. Finally, we will go forward.
This article was published in the Northern Netherlands edition, May 2018.
Top photo: by Author, 2018. 
