‘Water comes from all four sides’: how Rotterdam’s tidal park protects the city

New species are arriving at the park due to the nature-friendly banks, such as wading birds that come to forage in the silt. Photograph: Urbanisten

It was once an industrial harbour, but now this small space is an entirely new kind of thing; a tidal park built to allow the river to rise and fall in the middle of the city as wildlife thrives.

The swans are already at home on the sparkling waters of the Keilehaven in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands, and other birds are quickly settling in; grebe, oystercatchers, wild ducks and kingfishers.