Business_Spotlight_-_Nr.2_2020

TECHNOLOGY 2/2020 Business Spotlight 67

Fotos: The Great Bubble Barrier; primo-piano, oleg7799,, Evgeniya_Mokeeva/iStock.com

The

founding

team:

(from

left)

Ehrhorn,

Eveleens,

Studer

and Zoet

The

bubble

barrier:

boats

can pass

through

easily

Hope for a waterlogged country

Marieke van Doorninck, the deputy may-

or of Amsterdam, hopes it will be a suc-

cess. “Amsterdam’s canals have enormous

appeal,” she says. “But when you think of

them, you don’t think about plastic bot-

tles and bags in the water. The bubble

barrier will mean fewer plastics reach the

ocean and is a step towards better regu-

lation of our ecosystem, to the benefit of

man, beast and environment.”

In the small, waterlogged country, this

kind of innovation is welcome. Bianca

Nijhof, managing director of the Neth-

erlands Water Partnership, who organ-

izes the Amsterdam International Water

Week conference, says: “The Dutch live

with the water and don’t fight against it:

50 per cent of the country is below sea

level. More than half is prone to flood-

ing, and in 2018, we had severe drought,”

she adds. “This special relationship with

water combined with an entrepreneurial

mindset mean that innovation is at our

core. The bubble barrier is one solution

for clean water for all.”

© Guardian News & Media 2019

Dredging operations

collect 42,000

kilograms of plastics

from the Dutch

capital’s waterways

each year

Canal cruising

“In Amsterdam, canals were once used

for transportation and other things the

roads are now used for,” says Luis Ma-

teos, a graduate student in the Depart-

ment of Urban Studies and Planning

(DUSP) and a researcher in the MIT Sen-

seable City Lab. “Roads near canals are

now very congested — and have noise

and pollution — so the city wants to add

more functionality back to the canals.”

The Amsterdam Institute for Ad-

vanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS In-

stitute) has teamed up with researchers

at MIT to find new ways of cleaning up

Amsterdam’s 165 canals and reducing

congestion in its streets. The research-

ers are developing a fleet of autonomous

boats, called “roboats”. The rectangu-

lar boats have sensors, thrusters, GPS

equipment, cameras and other hard-

ware attached to them. The boats can

also connect to each other to perform

complex tasks.

The roboats are being designed to

pick up rubbish and test water quality,

among other tasks. They will cruise the

canals locating platforms with trash con-

tainers on them. The roboats will then

connect to a platform, load the rubbish

and carry it to a collection facility.

Source: https://waste-management-

world.com/a/in-depth-autonomous-

robotic-boats-could-collect-garbage-in-

amsterdam-s-canals

canal [kE(nÄl]

, Kanal; Gracht

collection facility

[kE(lekS&n fE)sIlEti]

, Sammelstelle

congested

[kEn(dZestId]

, verstopft

congestion

[kEn(dZestS&n]

, Stau; Überlastung

graduate student

[(grÄdZuEt

)stju:dEnt]

, Student(in) nach

dem ersten akade-

mischen Grad

pollution [pE(lu:S&n]

, (Umwelt-)

Verschmutzung

rubbish [(rVbIS] UK

, Müll

team up with sb.

[)ti:m (Vp wID]

, sich mit jmdm.

zusammenschließen

thruster

[(TrVstE]

, Strahlruder

trash container

[(trÄS kEn)teInE]

US , Abfallbehälter

beast [bi:st] , Tier(e)

core: be at sb.’s ~ [kO:]

, hier: im Kern von jmds.

Wesen liegen

deputy mayor

[)depjUti (meE]

, hier: Zweite(r)

Bürgermeister(in)

drought [draUt]

, Dürre

entrepreneurial

[)QntrEprE(n§:riEl]

, unternehmerisch

(denkend)

mindset [(maIndset]

, Denkweise

prone to flooding: be ~

[)prEUn tE (flVdIN]

, hochwasser-

gefährdet sein

sea level [(si: )lev&l]

, Meeresspiegel

severe [sI(vIE]

, heftig, schlimm

waterlogged

[(wO:tElQgd]

, wasserdurchtränkt;

hier: vom Wasser bestimmt