News

This year the Netherlands and Singapore mark a major milestone; 60 years of bilateral ties. These ties span across a range of topics, including water management, climate adaptation, and sustainable development. Deltares is proud to be part of this cooperation.

Deltares, Wageningen University, VU Amsterdam, and the World Bank have developed a new governance framework supporting countries to manage floods and droughts synergistically. The results of this effort has recently been published in PLOS Water.

What happens when there is a power cut in a major city or extreme weather make roads impassable? Deltares conducted a study for the city of Amsterdam to investigate the cascade effects of the loss of critical infrastructure due to climate threats such as flooding, heat and drought. Interdependencies and possible cascade effects were identified in collaboration with providers of vital functions.

The Marker Wadden, a man-made archipelago in the Markermeer lake, was constructed with local sediment and designed to restore ecological functions and open up leisure activities. The project is one of a kind, not only because of the innovative design but particularly because of how the financing was arranged.

Where are fresh and saline groundwater located and at what depth? And where are the clay layers that protect the underlying groundwater? This is important information for provincial authorities, water managers, water authorities, farmers and nature managers. To establish a picture, measurements will be made with a helicopter from August this year until February next year in the southern, western and northern Netherlands.

In recent years, the salt marshes of the Wadden Sea have slowly been expanding again. However, the ecological quality of these areas is under pressure. There is decreasing variation in vegetation and development stages. This is problematic, as European and international agreements aim to improve the condition of these dynamic coastal ecosystems.

Last Sunday, a train derailed in Germany due to a landslide caused by heavy rainfall. Three people were killed and dozens were injured. This raises the question: could something like this happen in the Netherlands? And how can we gain a better understanding of the current condition of railway embankments in order to prevent such accidents as much as possible?

Ten leading knowledge institutions, including Deltares, KNMI, MARIN, NLR, RIVM, TNO, Wageningen Research, Naturalis, NFI and RCE, are joining forces and realising DigiLab Applied Knowledge in close cooperation. This programme, supported by the Ministry of Economic Affairs, focuses on setting up a innovative, digital research facility.

For the first time, a harvest has been taken at the world's first seaweed farm located within the boundaries of an offshore wind farm. Located off the Dutch coast in the North Sea and in between wind turbines, this farm is an important milestone in multi-use of offshore wind farms. North Sea Farmers, Deltares, Plymouth Marine Laboratory and Silvestrum Climate Associates are investigating the future for seaweed farming.

The water temperatures of the Rhine are rising. This is shown by an analysis carried out by our experts and that of the German Federal Institute of Hydrology (BfG) on behalf of the International Commission for the Protection of the Rhine (ICPR). Effects on ecology and the economy are already being observed and will intensify in the future.

Deltares, Utrecht University, Oxford University, Wageningen University, TU Delft, University of Southampton and University of East Anglia have jointly developed a new framework that identifies the key drivers of change in deltas worldwide. The results of their research were published in Nature Climate Change today.

Shoreface nourishment – depositing sand below the waterline to counter coastal erosion – is one of the measures used to protect vulnerable coastal areas. This approach is used widely, particularly where large amounts of sand are available. Despite years of field measurements, laboratory experiments and model studies, the effect of shoreface nourishment is still difficult to predict and more knowledge is needed. This is the conclusion of researchers from Deltares, Twente University, Utrecht University, Delft University of Technology, Rijkswaterstaat, the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, and Technical University of Denmark in their new study.