About Harry van Essen

Harry van Essen works as a specialist in measuring and interpreting soil behaviour for over 30 years. Because of his background as a physical geographer, he brings with him specific knowledge about the background of this behaviour. Over the years, he has specialised in complex geotechnical laboratory tests and the models required and being developed for this purpose.

Recent focus areas in which this expertise is of great value include:

• the development of a new assessment framework for determining the erosion susceptibility of embankments;
• the behaviour of ripened clay as dike revetment in the context of encouraging the use of area-specific soil in dike improvement;
• investigating the issues of shrinkage and swelling and clay. He was interviewed for this by 1 Vandaag, who aired an item about it
• soil subsidence in peatland areas (the NOBV research programme, National Research Programme Soil Subsidence Peatland Areas)

The quality and traceability of measurements is a common thread throughout his career. As an expert, he has contributed the knowledge that led to the Baseline Subsurface Data Catalogue Drilling Survey - Geology. He also regularly performs quality checks at geotechnical laboratories in the Netherlands. In addition, in his role as quality manager, he achieved the status of accredited laboratory for Deltares' geotechnical laboratory, which incidentally stopped as the laboratory focused more on performing non-standardised, complex experiments.