Knowledge brokerage
In The Netherlands, ever since the Middle Ages, there has been an continuous reclamation of land for agriculture, and adjustment of the hydrological system to meet new and increasing demands. In the last decades, Dutch water management has gradually changed towards a focus on water management strategies based on multiple land use planning. Supporting the knowledge brokerage from and to the Netherlands, critical research topics and reasons to improve our approach are continuously revised.
Our core expertise:
- Catchment Hydrology
To develop, apply and exchange knowledge of hydrological processes and patterns at a catchment scale. To match water demands and water supply, we provide the catchments’ water manager with knowledge concerning processes and properties of the hydrological system, using modern techniques such as GIS-based analysis and Remote Sensing. The focus is on processes at the land surface, the unsaturated zone and on the interaction with the drainage system.
- Irrigation and Drainage
To develop and integrate irrigation and drainage truly in the context of water quantity and quality dynamics. Resolving the major problems of water scarcity and quality in the irrigation and drainage sector in an environmentally and financially sustainable manner requires location specific adaptations in land and water use. We assists governments and agencies in identifying and implementing such solutions at field, system, and catchment scales.
- Water quality
To develop knowledge on applicable pollution control measures, and to integrate this in knowledge on ecosystems. Nowadays most water quantity issues have a water quality aspect such as high concentrations of salts, pesticides, heavy metals and/or nutrients. The scale of the problems varies from a particular field to a whole catchment. Our research addresses a comprehensive integrated approach to evaluate impact of measures on both water quantity and water quality aspects.
- Integrated modeling
To develop advanced integrated tools to quantify the impact of climate and global change and to explore the impact of various management and adaptation strategies. We develop our own state-of-the-art integrated hydrological models and continuously update them with our knowledge of irrigation, drainage, and water quality. These tools are intensively used to conduct system analyses and to evaluate land and water management scenarios all over the world.