Story overview

What seems impossible today may well be reality tomorrow. Digital innovation is moving fast – and at Deltares, we are keeping up. Not just by adopting new technologies, but by truly understanding them. One of the most promising directions is building explainable AI models – systems that can make complex predictions and shed light on their own reasoning. Machine Learning specialist and hydrologist Hans Korving takes us into the world of explainable AI (XAI) and explains why strong domain knowledge is essential.

Did you know that much of the ocean floor has never been mapped in detail? While we can zoom in to street level with Google Maps, the underwater world remains largely uncharted. Deltares, together with European partners, is changing that using satellites, smart algorithms, and deep domain expertise.

Where fishing boats and cargo ships once dominated the seascape, offshore wind farms now define the horizon, delivering thousands of megawatts of green energy. The North Sea has become a strategic hub: busy with shipping and rich in renewable energy, food, and nature. Understanding what the sea is doing is vital. Wave forecasts play a key role in this—they help keep shipping safe, ensure storm surge barriers operate effectively, and protect offshore infrastructure. But how do you predict a natural force that is constantly changing?

“We’re facing a monstrous task”, says Joost Breedeveld, researcher resilient infrastructure at Deltares. “In forthcoming years, more and more bridges, sluices, weirs, pumping stations and other sections of the waterways will reach the end of their lifespan, in any event, on paper.” Joost and his fellow experts Dick ten Hove from MARIN and Ad van 't Zelfde from TNO are developing a knowledge base with tools to assist administrators such as Rijkswaterstaat. This will give them an overview of the maintenance tasks for wet engineering structures and a perspective for action.

Pressure on water quality and health is increasing. Climate change, pollution and other challenges are creating new health risks in water. Within its Water, Soil & Health expertise area, Deltares is working on projects such as BlueAdapt, TULIP and MOMENTUM, developing knowledge, models and practical tools to support water managers and policymakers in taking timely and effective action.

Without reliable systems, advanced software and secure data infrastructure, our researchers simply couldn’t do their work. The ICT team at Deltares provides the essential building blocks: from high-performance computing for numerical simulations to data platforms that uphold FAIR principles and enable collaboration across disciplines. This gives our experts access to the data and computing power they need to develop solutions for urgent societal challenges. Leroy van Logchem is a Systems Architect. What drives him in his work at Deltares? We asked Leroy: “What drives you?”.

Tens of thousands of homeowners living on expansive clay soil are at risk of foundation damage. This clay swells when it rains and shrinks considerably during droughts, causing serious damage to houses and foundations. By investigating the properties of this clay and mapping the locations, Deltares is laying the foundation for a risk assessment system.

One of our most important pieces of infrastructure lies underground: without a sewer system, there can be no healthy living environment! Most sewer systems were built fifty years ago and are in urgent need of renewal, especially now extreme rainfall is becoming more common. During the replacement of the Riool Zuid sewer system near Eindhoven, Deltares' expertise was used to test the capacity of a temporary system, enabling water authority De Dommel to work safely on a future-proof sewer system.

ProRail wants to use the existing railway as efficiently as possible and run more, faster and heavier trains. However, the soft Dutch subsoil causes subsidence in some places. And now that houses are being built closer and closer to the railway, vibration nuisance must be prevented. In a multi-year collaboration, ProRail and Deltares are tackling these challenges to gain insight into the problems and solutions.

Anyone who walks in the direction of the Delta Flume on the Deltares campus will see a glass greenhouse. That’s not particularly unusual in the Westland area. But at a research institute? Sunflowers are growing in the greenhouse as part of an experiment looking at how vegetation can clean the soil. What’s the story? We ask Tom Bosma, one of the project leaders.

For years, water managers have relied on complex numerical models to predict water levels and soil behaviour. But artificial intelligence is changing the game. Hanneke van der Klis, strategic advisor at Deltares, explains: “We’ve built incredibly sophisticated numerical models that use mathematics to describe how water moves and how the ground behaves. But now, machine learning techniques are stepping in, they can calculate at lightning speed, using trusted simulations as their foundation.”

Aquathermal energy, heat extraction from surface water, can heat almost half of all homes in the Netherlands. In order to scale up aquathermal energy and accelerate the energy transition, more knowledge is needed, for example about the consequences of cold water discharges in nature. That is why Deltares, together with Rijkswaterstaat, STOWA and Waternet, is investigating how such cold water discharges spread.