An ocean as vast as a continent separates Florida from the Netherlands. Yet despite the transatlantic distance between them—more than 4,000 nautical miles, to be exact—they are profoundly linked by an important key aspect: their vulnerability to encroaching seas and their efforts to stave them off.
That connection took center stage on Tuesday when King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands visited the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science to help raise awareness about water-related challenges faced by their country and South Florida and to explore potential collaborations between the University and the group of Caribbean islands that are part of their kingdom.
Their visit to the Marine Campus was part of a three-day working trip to the U.S., with stops also including Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
During their Miami stopover, the royal couple visited the Dr. Henry W. Mack/West Little River K-8 Center, Pérez Art Museum Miami, and Little Havana's Domino Park before ending their whirlwind day at the Rosenstiel School, where they were greeted by Joel H. Samuels, executive vice president for academic affairs and provost, and the school's dean, Ben Kirtman.
Then, with the waters of Biscayne Bay as a backdrop, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima sat in the dining room portion of the school's Salt Waterfront Restaurant, as University, Miami-Dade, and Dutch officials officially welcomed the royal couple and dozens of others in attendance.
"Florida and the Netherlands share a lot in common," said Michael Berkowitz, executive director of the University's Climate Resilience Institute, who spearheaded the royal couple's Rosenstiel School visit. "Both are fundamentally exposed to water risks whether those are rising seas, persistent storms, rainfall flooding, and saltwater intrusion. And both are working to build innovative protective infrastructure that combines built and natural features that leave our communities more resilient."
He said that Florida resilience officials and engineers could learn valuable lessons from their Dutch counterparts, noting the Netherlands' long-term sustainable infrastructure projects such as the Maeslant Barrier, a massive storm surge barrier that protects Rotterdam from North Sea flooding.
And the Dutch, Berkowitz said, could also learn how Florida resilience officials are able to leverage the power of innovation to design and create projects such as hybrid reefs, heat-resistant corals, and living seawalls that not only protect against erosion but also foster marine biodiversity.
"We know about the Dutch planning prowess," said Berkowitz, who founded the 100 Resilient Cities initiative that included Rotterdam and Greater Miami as prominent members. "Despite that, the Netherlands has a less mature emergency management system than we do. What better place to learn about how to plan for, respond to, and recover from disasters? It's not hyperbole to say that modern U.S. emergency management began here after Hurricane Andrew."
Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava echoed that sentiment in her remarks, noting that the county overhauled its building code in the aftermath of the devastating 1992 hurricane, creating one of the strictest in the nation.
Collaboration, she said, is the answer for confronting climate and resilience challenges. "I believe strongly in our collective ability to develop a joint agenda that advances science, policy, and implementation of transformative water projects," Levine Cava said. "And I could not be more thrilled to support this knowledge exchange happening right here today with this group and to know that it will lead to even more meaningful action towards a more resilient Miami-Dade, the Netherlands, and world."
In his remarks, Berkowitz touted potential collaborations with the Netherlands—among them, a partnership addressing extreme heat. "We are learning more about the impact of heat and about how nature-based solutions like street trees mitigate its worst effects," he explained. "That knowledge can help as you start to wrestle with your own understanding of how heat impacts you in the Netherlands."
He also singled out the development, testing, and deployment of resilience technology, noting that a partnership between Deltares—a major Netherlands-based tech institute specializing in hydraulic engineering research—and the Rosenstiel School's powerful wind-wave tank is in the works.
"To supercharge this collaboration, we're proud to bring the Water as Leverage program to our region," Berkowitz said, alluding to the Dutch-launched initiative aimed at building urban climate resilience by focusing on water systems.
Michael Simas, president and CEO of the Florida Council of 100, and Vincent Karremans, minister of infrastructure and water management for the Netherlands, also spoke.
During a Water as Leverage workshop held at the Rosenstiel School on the same day as the royal couple's visit, teams of stakeholders from industry, local government, NGOs, and academia addressed three resilience challenges.
Landolf Rhode-Barbarigos, an associate professor in the Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering at the College of Engineering and associate director of the Climate Resilience Institute, served on a team focused on the implementation of a sponge park at Biscayne Gardens Park.
"We analyzed the project's multidimensional requirements, ranging from technical engineering solutions to long-term funding models and community engagement strategies," said Barbarigos, who played the role of an investor during the workshop activity. "The simulation illustrated the interdependencies and co-benefits of nature-based solutions while highlighting the challenge of balancing competing interests and varying timescales to properly value ecosystem benefits."
Meanwhile, a parallel showcase event featured poster displays on tech innovations by different Dutch companies.
The royal couple capped off their stay by looking in on some of the tech and resilience initiatives underway at the Rosenstiel School.
At the Alfred C. Glassell Jr. SUrge-STructure-Atmosphere INteraction (SUSTAIN) Laboratory, Brian Haus, professor in the Department of Ocean Sciences and associate dean of infrastructure, explained how the diverse wind-wave tank can simulate Category 5 hurricane conditions and how it has become a pivotal tool not only in tropical storm research but also in experiments in coastal resilience, marine biology, energy, and environmental technology.
And at the Coral Reef Futures Lab, marine biologist Andrew Baker briefed the royal couple on his lab's international coral-breeding efforts aimed at making corals more resistant to rising ocean temperatures that can spawn bleaching events.
Baker and his team, the royal couple learned, have bred elkhorn corals from Florida with elkhorn parents from an unusually warm reef in Honduras, creating so-called "Flonduran" corals that could hold the genetic key to increasing the state's elkhorn coral gene pool while also enhancing their resilience to heat stress.
"Last year, in a first-of-its-kind endeavor, we outplanted into wild reefs Flonduran elkhorn corals that were the products of that crossing," said Baker, noting that the project could help create international coral-breeding collaborations with the three autonomous Caribbean islands—Aruba, Curaçao, and Sint Maarten—that are part of the Netherlands.
For Jacinda van Wakeren, a first-year student from the Netherlands majoring in business technology and sustainable business at the Miami Herbert Business School, King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima's visit provided a taste of home.
She learned of the royal couple's visit only a few hours before they arrived in Miami and got a friend to drive her to the Rosenstiel School in hopes of getting a glimpse of them. Van Wakeren managed to do more than that, shouting a warm welcome to the coupe in Dutch upon their arrival and asking if she could get her picture taken with them. His Majesty the King obliged.
Van Wakeren's great aunt thought the image was an AI-generated photo until she convinced her it was real. "I just had to make this happen," van Wakeren said. "What a dream come true."
