On Friday, March 22, the Rotterdam based Aquarius Foundation is organizing for the 11th year the Dutch World Water Day with support of the annual Rotterdam Swim!
This year the following five rivers will be cleaned from the city hall of Leiden to the city hall of Rotterdam over a distance of 45 km:
– New Rhine (all the way)
– the Rhine-Schie canal (all the way)
– the Schie (completely)
– the Maas (part)
– the Rotte (part)
This 45 km waterway, which will be cleaned in 24 stages of approximately 2 km each, connects 1.5 million people living and / or working in 40,000 companies, 6 municipalities (Leiden, Leidschendam-Voorburg, The Hague, Rijswijk, Delft and Rotterdam), 3 universities, 3 water boards and 1 provinces.
In 2015 the annual World Water Day river clean-up from the Aquarius Foundation took on a national character when they organized the largest one-day river cleaning in Europe by cleaning the New Dutch Water Line from Loevesteijn Castle to Muiderslot Castle. In that year they cleaned 45 forts spread over a distance of 140 km along the New Dutch Waterline.
In that year, the Dutch World Water Day also grew into a three-day festival with this year at:
– Thursday, March 21, the 5th Poetry For Water Festival in Rotterdam,
– Friday 22 March in addition to the aforementioned 45 km river cleaning, also a Lunch in Leidschendam, a Solar Bottle Boat Race in Delft and a World Water Day Party in Rotterdam
– Saturday 23 March the World Water Day Film 2019 in the Omniversum in The Hague
Incidentally, the Aquarius Foundation has cleaned more than 300 km of river with thousands of volunteers in recent years. It concerned the following rivers and routes:
– 2009 the Schie in Historical Delfshaven (500 m.)
– 2010 the Rotte in Rotterdam (4 km)
– 2011 the Amstel in Amsterdam (3 km)
– 2012 the Oude IJssel from Germany to the Netherlands (5 km)
– 2013 de Laak in The Hague (4 km)
– 2014 the Oude Rijn from Harmelen to Katwijk aan Zee (50 km)
– 2015 the New Dutch Waterline Clean (140 km)
– 2016 from Amsterdam to Rotterdam (90 km)
– 2017 the Haringvliet (1 km)
– 2018 the Schie, the Rotte and the Maas (8 km)