SCENARIO'S

Denisa (age 30) a gender fluid high school teacher is awakened by a soft bright light and soothing music, her smart-home recognizes that its the morning. There is barely any natural light entering her windows, but thats just the norm now considering the density of the buildings in her city after the flooding. Her home-AI reminds her of the date, 2050. January 21. And also lists her schedule for the day. Denisa gets ready for her morning commute. Individual vehicles have become a high luxury item, so Denisa must use her ride-sharing passport and take one of the electric scooters outside her home. She lives in a green area so no shared motorbikes or cars are available to her. 20 minutes later she reaches the first water zone and hops onto a hydrobus which floats her 10km downstream to her destination. The commute feels like a breeze with her micro-agent playing and curating her favourite songs and a quick and fun game on the playbox 3 installed on the hydrobuses.

1.

2.

In 2032 parts of Rotterdam were flooded in a controlled manner. To rebuilt Rotterdam they used land reclamation to reclaim the most centrally located areas. Now it’s the year 2050, Rotterdam has transformed into a city that is half water, half land. The big amounts of water that are still in Rotterdam, are used for hydropower. The whole city runs on energy from the wind, water and sun.
It’s a Saturday morning, 9 a.m. Joe (51) just had breakfast, and walks over to the bathroom. Just when he was about to take a shower his daughter Mette (17) rushes to the bathroom door, ‘Dad do you know where my VR headset is?’ Joe has no clue ofcourse, ‘ask your mom’ he says, and he closes the door. He steps into the shower cabin, and the water starts running. The water system in this house is all attached to a rainwater filtering system outside. Since the heavy rainfalls in 2032 the municipality realized they might as well use all the water. ‘Found it!’ Mette yells. Nowadays 90 percent of the students are pursuing online degree programmes. Virtual reality and augmented reality technologies are so refined that they enabled online learners to have the same experience as in physical lessons. After the shower Joe gets to the closet, and selects ‘work’, ‘hydrobike’ and he guessed the amount of time he’ll be outside. The closet hands him a customized suit, and some matching shoes. ‘Bali are you ready?’ He asks his wife. Bali is a marine biologist that works at Rotterdam Hydropower Corporation (RHC). Since Joe his job is to check up on the agriculture farm once in a while, he insists on joining his wife on her way to work. Also he just secretly really enjoys driving the hydro bikes for a bit every day. Bali is wearing a similar suit, but in different colors and with short sleeves. They walk out the front door of their home, and walk to the closest hydro bike station. There are multiple stations in every living area, and the number of bikes is perfectly adjusted to every area, because of a shared network collecting data. The bikes recognize their faces, and unlock. The hydrobikes are a bit like electric bikes, and by riding them on the water they get hydropower, this way they never run out of power. They unlock with face recognition, and lock automatically when they are stalled back into a station. They both start riding towards the nearest water ‘road’. There’s something about riding a bike on the water that’s just very calming. A kid that is just a bit over enthusiastic drives by and water splashes onto both Joe and Bali, they laugh. “Good thing they invented the suits huh’ Joe mumbles. So Rotterdam is divided in different areas, that are connected with both land and water ways. With the bikes you can get anywhere in a small amount of time. The bigger waters that are used to get hydropower from, are located away from the city center. The RHC is there, and the windmills, but that’s about it. Every house has their own water filtering system, and some solar panels.

3.

Character: Soren (Hydropower engineer - 30)
Year: 2050
Scenario: Rotterdam was flooded in a control manner 20 years ago, and now, nearly every household appliance is powered by hydropower. Every house is connected to a water source that relies on the natural way water moves that powers the electrical grid, as well as various other environmentally safe products, such as solar panels.

Soren wakes up to his house beeping. ‘Not again’, he thinks as he gets up and walks over to his kitchen, where the beeping is originating from. As he walks by the window, he casts a brief glance at the water tank level located right outside his window. Low again. Sighing, he grabs the bucket he keeps next to the door and heads outside. The sun is shining unnaturally bright, and he grins, turning on the solar panels located on the water tank. “Extra energy won’t hurt anyone,” he hums, turning around. The sea level is a mere 10 meters below his house. He steps inside the elevator, and selects “Level 1”. The elevator hums to life and slowly lowers him down to the water level. There, he finds the crane and attaches his bucket to it and presses “on”. The crane starts to mechanically dip the bucket into the water, and Soren knows that if he stayed there to watch it, it would lift the arm all the way up to his house and systematically fill his water tank. Soren glances at his watch and curses. His work starts in an hour and his house isn’t functioning yet! He races back to the elevator and impatiently taps his foot as it slowly moves him back up. He’s relieved to find that most of the appliances in his house are now working, and he quickly brushes his teeth, and gets dressed, barely bothering to grab a piece of bread for later as he rushes out the door. The sun hits him again, only this time, he glares at it as he makes his way across the glass walkways that connect every house and building in his district. He nods hello to the people passing by, most of them in a hurry like him. He gets down to the water level and a gate greets him. Hurriedly, he scans his OV Chipcard in the machine and it beeps, letting him through. Not many people take the Fast Track this early in the morning, thankfully, and he’s able to quickly find a seat. As Soren waits for the Bubble to fill up, his mind wanders. The Bubble was a very clever way of incorporating the rising sea levels into public transport, using the waves (with a little extra kick) to push passenger cabins across tracks. Depending on how fast you’d like to go, you buy specific passes, as Fast Tracks usually use up a lot more energy and therefore are not as environmentally friendly as the other ones. The Bubble finally fills up, and the doors close with a loud beep. Despite doing this nearly every morning, a sense of excitement flushes through him. He feels like a kid again as he watches the chamber seal off from the platform and slowly starts to fill with water. When the Bubble is fully immersed, a robotic voice sounds inside the cabin: “The Bubble will now proceed to Rotterdam Centraal. Please hold on.” A pleasant beep sounds again and then the Bubble shoots forwards with a whoosh, the water channels in the back of the chamber propelling it forwards at a frightening speed. Soren grins to himself as he watches the bubbles whizz past and somewhere in the cabin, a child squeals with delight. It only takes a couple of minutes for the Bubble to reach the center of Rotterdam and Soren is one of the first to speed out of it (checking out with his card, of course) and up onto the walkways of Rotterdam as he runs towards his office building.